After a hiatus for the year-end and New Year’s holidays, the Japan Tourism Agency will resume its domestic travel discount programme on a lesser scale starting on Tuesday.
The action is a part of measures to help the domestic tourist sector, which has suffered greatly as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
The maximum discount per visitor, each night, including shopping vouchers that may be utilised at establishments like restaurants, will be reduced from 11,000 to 7,000.
Users of the programme will need to provide documentation of a COVID-19 booster dose or a negative test result.
The central government’s financial backing will be taken into consideration when each prefecture decides when the programme should end. According to the organisation, the tools will remain accessible at least through the end of March.
The maximum amount of the discount will be decreased from 8,000 to 5,000 per night per tourist for tour packages that include public transportation services and from 5,000 to 3,000 for hotel stays solely and one-day trips. The discount rate for travel will also be decreased from 40% to 20%.
In general, the shopping vouchers that will be offered as part of the programme will be sent electronically. The quantity of coupons distributed will decrease from 3,000 to 2,000 during the week and stay at 1,000 over the weekends and holidays.
Tetsuo Saito, the minister of tourism, stated at a press conference on Friday that “reviving tourism demand is very necessary to restore the economy.” We want tourists to go to Japan while adopting the bare minimum COVID-19 security measures.
