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Stormy year ahead for Japan's tourism industry

19 Comments
By Junko Horiuchi and Takuya Okamoto

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19 Comments
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That's hard to believe as HIS is still advertising and selling package deals. Went online yesterday to see if any tickets to Seoul and sure enough no problem.

10 ( +10 / -0 )

I'm sure HIS are fully prepared to SELL you a ticket to Seoul, and after that, their responsibility will be over, in their minds.

Bit like the Olympics, how many ticket holders are going to be stiffed with the 'No refunds' policy.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

If the Japanese had collectively put as much energy into containing this outbreak from the beginning, instead of being so fixated on the Olympics and getting 40,00,000 tourists here this year, we wouldn't be nearly in the mess than we are in now.

Now is time to pull together and take responsibility to solve this issue. The longer one keeps one's head in the sand, the worse things will get, and that seems to be the path people here have chosen to take. I think that's the wrong choice.

Once this outbreak is over, let's then discuss the Olympics and strategies to entice the tourists back.

Priorities.

8 ( +8 / -0 )

Articles like these simply focus on the negatives and money (economy). How about the huge increase in quality of life - less congestion, pollution, slower life and more time to spend with family?

6 ( +10 / -4 )

What intrigues me is what are the chances of a second outbreak wave around the start of next year?

Would there then be a total reprise - e.g. Olympics postponed for another year...?

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Seen Cruise Ship trips still being advertised? Total denial. The only countries not on lockdown are the Sudan, Afganistan and other rather unfriendly destinations. Tourism is a dead horse for at least a year or more.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

How about the huge increase in quality of life - less congestion, pollution, slower life and more time to spend with family?

People losing their jobs, businesses going bankrupt, not knowing how to pay next month’s rent, how to put food on the table for their families would not agree.

There are no positives to an epidemic!!!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

@ifd66

Articles like these simply focus on the negatives and money (economy). How about the huge increase in quality of life - less congestion, pollution, slower life and more time to spend with family?

Unfortunately this new found quality of life, as you put it, cannot be maintained. People are losing jobs and income. If you don’t have any money or a way of making it that translates into desperate times for many which many are experiencing already. Not much fun when payments are due and your car and house face repossession and there isn’t any food on the table certainly doesn’t translate into a happy time with the family. Seven billion plus people cannot simply down tools indefinitely. If these lockdowns don’t stem and stop this virus people will automatically revert back to normal and accept the virus exits and it’s risks and life will go on. We just need to transition through this phase. People get bored quickly and will only run and hide for so long. To be honest, a world in total lockdown indefinitely and the total chaos that will bring is far more scary scenario then simply living our normal live with this virus as a risk factor of living on planet along with the other plethora of things both natural and man made that are currently lurking out there waiting to kill us. This virus will simply become another flu. For me personally, what we need to take away from this situation is that the world in its entirety needs to clamp down and force countries to shut down the vectors for the virus jumps from animal to man. As far as I can tell both SARS and COVID-19 both originated in China. They need to get to the bottom of this and the world needs to ensure that they do. If not, simply close all doors until they do! Leaving countries to simply blunder along, which has dire consequences on the entire planet, needs to stop NOW!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

I think tourism is just a tip of an iceberg.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Stormy year ahead for Japan's tourism industry

Perhaps the word "Japan's" to "The."

I think there are other countries in the world suffering from this, maybe even more than Japan?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

JandworldToday  01:40 pm JST

Does this piece of writing say the benefits to the construction sector already equals potential losses?

Potential losses? To the economy, you mean.

What about the people in the tourism industry with tangible losses?

Perhaps they should all become labourers to recoup their losses?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Perhaps change the word****

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is a good lesson for the Japanese who were so fixated on material wealth and vacations to Hawaii, where I live btw, spending exuberant amounts of money on luxury goods and flaunting their wealth.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Im sure it will be a blow to the tourism economy because allot of outsiders consider all Asian countries to be the same, and since this started in China, well honestly speaking, many consider both countries to be the same.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Considering how long and hard a lot of us around the world have been working in recent years, this is actually a welcome break to me. Because we all, in one way or another, are getting some kind of break out of this. That is clearly, a huge plus as well. And with these stimulus bills being passed, or soon to be passed, then I say, all the more reason why this break will be so beneficial to all of us.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Does this piece of writing say the benefits to the construction sector already equals potential losses?

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

@ifd66 you know, I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot in recent days. Because my family members, have either been working from home, or have been laid off. In the case of the latter, my cousin was able to use his opportunity, so that he and a friend of his can move into an apartment that they really wanted to move into. And they’re getting a great rate for it, or at least that’s what he told me. They moved in last weekend, before a lot of the lockdown stuff was really beginning here in the US.

And my mom was saying that she loves working from home, considering that her workplace has been so stressful as of late. And I myself can attest to this general attitude as well.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

This is a good thing, over tourism has been destroying the culture for too many years. Going back to the way things were is not a solution.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

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