As Japan throws open its doors to visitors this week after more than two years of pandemic isolation, hopes for a tourism boom face tough headwinds amid shuttered shops and a shortage of hospitality workers, according to a media report.
From October 11, 2022, Japan will reinstate visa-free travel to dozens of countries, including Australia, and scrap its cap of 50,000 daily arrivals, ending some of the world's strictest border controls to slow the spread of COVID-19.
More than half a million tourists have visited Japan so far this year, compared with a record 31.8 million in 2019. Banking on the summer Olympics to boost visitor numbers, the government had a goal of 40 million in 2020 until both were up-ended by the pandemic.
Japan's biggest international airport, Narita Airport, remains eerily quiet, with about half of its 260 shops and restaurants closed, looking like a ghost town, according to a traveller. The three souvenir shops had been closed at the airport and were unlikely to reopen until next spring. Restrictions are still pretty strict compared to other countries.
About 73 per cent of hotels nationwide said they were short of regular workers in August, up from about 27 per cent a year earlier, according to market research firm Teikoku Databank. In Kawaguchiko, a lake town at the foot of Mt Fuji, inns had staffing difficulties before the pandemic due to Japan's tight labour market and anticipate a similar bottleneck now.
That sentiment was echoed by Akihisa Inaba, general manager at the hot-spring resort Yokikan in Shizuoka, who said short staffing during the summer meant workers had to forego time off.
Naturally, the labour shortage is expected to become more pronounced when inbound travel returns. Whether overseas visitors wear face masks and abide by other common infection controls in Japan is another concern.
The strict border controls were broadly popular during most of the pandemic, and fears remain about the appearance of new viral variants.
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