Tears and relief as Japan fully reopens to foreign travelers

TOKYO -- An elderly woman sat impatiently in her wheelchair in the arrival lobby of Tokyo's Haneda Airport on Tuesday morning. When her elder sister came in from a flight from Seoul, they hugged for the first time in three years in a long tearful embrace.

The 76-year-old South Korean resident of Tokyo had been kept apart from her sibling by Japan's strict entry rules imposed at the onset of the pandemic. Their reunion will be just one example of a family reunited after Japan fully opened its borders on Tuesday.

The country has resumed visa-free entry for individual travelers and has waived its entry cap of 50,000 per day. Travelers from most countries are exempt from quarantine and on-arrival COVID tests, although they still have to submit either a vaccine certificate or a negative COVID test result within 72 hours of departure.

"We are finally here after so much waiting," said Markus Fruehwirth, a 29-year-old from Austria who will spend four weeks in Japan. He had to cancel his original plan of studying Japanese at a language school in April 2020.

Fruehwirth said he plans to visit Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima, and will go to hot springs and tourist spots such as Tokyo's Ghibli Museum. With many people still wearing masks in Japan even though it is not strictly required, Fruehwirth said: "I don't have a problem with wearing a mask if it's needed. I don't have any issue with that."

Foreign visitors exchange money at Kansai International Airport on Oct. 11. (Photo by Arisa Moriyama)

The number of international travelers between January and August this year stood at around 820,000, down 96% from the same period in 2019, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization.

Karen Carl Morrison, a tourist from the U.S., said she would spend just five hours in Japan on Tuesday before flying back to the U.S. "Originally, we were going to come to Japan for three weeks, and we booked flights months ago," Morrison said. However, she couldn't get into Japan at that time and so changed her flights to spend time in Thailand and South Korea.

"This is our last day. We're flying home. But we have five hours. ... We are very happy to be here for at least a little bit of time." She planned to visit a Don Quijote discount store, a popular tourist destination.

The weak yen is acting as a tailwind, as it makes travel and spending in Japan cheaper. The Japanese currency is worth 145 per dollar, a steep fall from 115 yen at the start of the year.

The travel industry has high hopes. In 2019, foreign travelers to Japan spent around 4.8 trillion yen ($33 billion), a record high for the seventh consecutive year.

According to Airbnb, as of Sept. 23, the top places of residence of guests who searched for accommodations in Japan on its app were South Korea, the U.S., Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore. The destinations most frequently searched for were Osaka, Tokyo, the Tokyo areas of Shinjuku and Shibuya, and Fukuoka.

Some areas are already seeing a rebound in inbound business. Taiwan-based online travel startup KKday said the number of reservations for activities available in Japan between Sept. 1 and 30 increased by up to 20 times compared to the previous month. "For now, tourists tend to book activities in major cities such as Tokyo and Osaka," a representative told Nikkei Asia.

But some businesses are still in wait-and-see mode.

A representative for sightseeing bus operator Hato Bus told Nikkei Asia that the company is considering when to restart foreign-language tours, available in English and Chinese, which have been suspended since April 2020.

People arriving at Kansai International Airport are welcomed by local government officials in ninja costumes on Oct. 11. (Photo by Arisa Moriyama)

Although full reopening is giving a glimmer of hope to the travel industry, the rebound may be somewhat restricted, as travelers from China are unlikely to visit Japan anytime soon. The country shows no signs of easing its strict zero-COVID policy. In 2019, Chinese visitors accounted for 30% of tourist arrivals in Japan.

"It will take time for the travel industry to recover fully," noted Wakaba Kobayashi, an economist at the Daiwa Institute of Research. Given the previous high ratio of Chinese tourists, "It will be difficult for Japan to achieve a similar reduction in the rate of decline in arrivals even if COVID border restrictions are relaxed to the level of other Group of Seven countries."

Additional reporting by Kentaro Iwamoto.