Displaying Items By Tag: Visitors

The Japan National Tourism Organization estimates that 13,700 foreigners entered Japan in September. The figure exceeded 10,000 for the first time in six months, but is down 99.4 percent from a year ago.

They mostly came from Asia, with 3,000 from China, 2,700 from Vietnam, 1,400 from South Korea and 1,000 from Thailand. Most of them are thought to be foreign students and technical trainees who had been living in Japan before the coronavirus outbreak and reentered the country.

Crowds of visitors flocked to Ise Shrine in central Japan on the first Sunday since trips to and from Tokyo were added to the government's nationwide "Go To" campaign to encourage tourism.

The program offers heavy subsidies to tourists to help revive the pandemic-hit economy.

Major tourist spots in Tokyo received relatively small numbers of visitors on Thursday, the start of a four-day weekend.

Many people are believed to have been deterred from going out by a recent resurgence of coronavirus cases and the Tokyo governor's calls to stay at home as well as rainy weather.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary says the government will do its utmost to recover the country's tourism industry hit hard by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Suga Yoshihide expressed a goal of attracting 60 million foreign tourists in 2030.

Yamagata Prefecture in northern Japan has launched its own anti-coronavirus measures targeting people coming from other prefectures.

Local officials on Saturday began checking temperatures of visitors at seven locations, including a key train station, an airport and a parking area near the border with Miyagi Prefecture.

The coronavirus pandemic sharply decreased the number of foreigners visiting Japan last month.

Japanese tourism officials say the figure for March was 193,700, down 93 percent from a year earlier.

Japan's Immigration Services Agency says the number of foreigners who entered the country in March fell by more than 90 percent from the same month last year, due largely to refused entries attributed to the coronavirus.

Preliminary data from the agency shows that 152,162 foreigners arrived in Japan. That number excludes people who were given permission to re-enter. The figure was 2,504,193 in March, 2019.

Japan's government has decided to ask all travelers entering the country to self-quarantine for two weeks, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The government made the decision at a coronavirus taskforce meeting on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says foreigners coming from northern Italy, as well as some other areas where cases of the new coronavirus are surging, will be denied entry into Japan from Wednesday.

The number of confirmed infections and deaths in Italy are now second to China. On Tuesday, Italy's government extended a lockdown from the northern part of the country to the entire nation.

The Japanese government has begun making arrangements to bar foreign nationals from southern areas of South Korea from entering Japan, in response to the spread of the new coronavirus.

The measure would block the entry of foreign citizens who have stayed in Daegu City and Cheongdo County in North Gyeongsang Province within 14 days of their arrival in Japan, unless they have special reasons.

Foreign visitor numbers to Japan have fallen again for a fourth straight month. Figures for January show a steep decline in tourists from South Korea.

Tourism operators are also preparing for the impact of the coronavirus epidemic. That's expected to hit the industry from February onwards.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has reiterated a goal of welcoming 40 million visitors by the end of the year.

Suga addressed a government panel Wednesday at the prime minister's office to promote a tourism strategy.

FUKUI--A permanent exhibition at the Fukui Prefectural Museum of Cultural History here allows visitors to travel back to the Showa Era (1926-1989) to see how people's lives were beginning to change at the time.

"Life in the Showa Period" features items and scenes from the period during which Japan achieved rapid economic growth after its defeat in World War II.