Japan's Go To Travel campaign in trouble amid surge in COVID-19

 In the context of a continued decline in exports and difficult recovery of inbound tourism amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Japanese government has launched a domestic travel promotion campaign to help tourism revive.

   However, as a recent resurgence of the pandemic makes people hesitate, the "Go To Travel" campaign has run into trouble and may take more time to swing into full gear.

   The government originally planned to launch the campaign in August, but moved it forward to July 22 to exploit a four-day vacation beginning July 23.

   Since the beginning of July, the epidemic has rebounded in some parts of the country. In particular, the number of daily new infections in Tokyo has been on the rise.

   With the situation, some experts and the public have expressed deep concern about the nationwide tourism promotion campaign, fearing that the mass movement of people would lead to a wide spread of the virus. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, alongside other government officials, have made clear their objections.

   The Japanese government was thus forced to adjust its plan and exclude Tokyo from the campaign, affecting its residents and visitors as well.

   Tokyo is both the most important source of tourists and a major tourist destination in Japan. As a result, many travel agencies have received cancellation requests, and the Japanese government has had to reimburse the related cost.

   After Tokyo lowered its COVID-19 alert level in mid-September, the central government decided to bring it back to the Go To Travel campaign from Oct. 1.

   The program subsidizes domestic travels across the country, with the government providing up to half of the cost of the travel.

   Under the 1.35 trillion yen (12.7 billion U.S. dollars) campaign, each tourist can get a subsidy of up to 20,000 yen (188.6 U.S. dollars) per day when going on a lodging trip, and a one-day round trip can get up to 10,000 yen (94.3 U.S. dollars).

   The specific measures include the 35-percent discount on transport and accommodation expenses, and the 15-percent discount on catering, shopping, sightseeing and transport expenses at the tourist destinations through the use of coupons.

   However, for some tourists, the process of getting and using vouchers has turned out to be not smooth. Some of the vouchers could not be used because they were not delivered in time, and a large number of inquiries made the official website once paralyzed.

   Meanwhile, fewer shops were accepting vouchers than expected. Some shop owners also complained that they had applied for accepting vouchers but failed to get the permission as of Oct. 1.

   Some local residents told local media that as the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 is still surging in the Tokyo area, it is premature to promote tourism and they will not participate in the campaign.

   Japan is trying to achieve an economic rebound backed by tourism and contain the virus spread at the same time. However, it may takes longer time as currently both goals appear to be difficult to reach.