6 hours ago
'Dream come true': Japan reopens to tourists
TOKYO - Japan reopened its doors to tourists Tuesday after two-and-a-half years of tough Covid restrictions, with officials hoping an influx of travellers enticed by a weak yen will boost the economy.
By mid-morning, tourists from Israel, France and Britain were already pouring in.
"It's a long, long dream come true," said 69-year-old Adi Bromshtine, a retiree arriving at Tokyo's Haneda airport from Israel.
"We were planning before Covid and waiting and waiting," she told AFP.
READ: Japan to lift Covid restrictions on foreign tourists from October
Japan slammed its borders shut early in the pandemic, at one point even barring foreign residents from returning, and has only recently begun cautiously reopening.
In June, it began allowing tourists to visit in groups accompanied by guides, a requirement that was further relaxed to include self-guided package tours.
From Tuesday, visa-free entry resumed for travellers from 68 countries and territories.
Japan is also lifting a cap on the number of arrivals and ending the package tour requirement.
Some rules remain, with tourists required to present either proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test taken three days before departure.
Before Covid, Japan's government was on track to achieve a goal of 40 million visitors by 2020, the year Tokyo was supposed to host the Summer Olympics.
Japan received a record 31.9 million foreign visitors in 2019, but that plummeted to just 250,000 in 2021.
In Japan, tourists will find a country that is still adhering to many of the health guidelines that helped it to keep pandemic deaths to around 45,500, lower than many other developed economies.
Another major change for tourists will be the weakness of the yen, which is hovering around 145 to the dollar, a level not seen for two decades.