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© KYODOJapan's governors want more areas cut from travel program as needed
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Mable
Considering the recent developments, the timing for this campaign is simply not adequate. Cancelling it entirely is too drastic, as economic revitalization is necessary. Excluding Tokyo is unjust, because residents will pay for something they will not benefit from.
Postponing for a few months is the only option that makes the most sense in my opinion. Priority should be given on anti-virus measures first, otherwise it will be a never ending circle of new infections and all its economic and social consequences.
Fiddlers
Common sense would be too postpone it until the numbers come down but common sense is one thing Abe and his government doesn't have.
Takara
good campaign. bad timing. しょうがない!
HAMBURGER
Postpone it by a season or two. It's a reasonably enlightened idea at the wrong time.
borscht
What areas do they want excluded - other than Tokyo?
HBJ
They are doing it now because of the 4 day weekend coming up at the end of next week.
So around August 7th we should see if there’s a spike in infections or not.
Fingers crossed there isn’t.
Do the hustle
This is just another one of a very long list of seriously dumb and expensive ideas by the J-Gov. in their attempt to control the spread of this virus. How are those masks going anyway?
Arrrgh-Type
There are many smaller prefectures with little or not Coronavirus activity. In theory, travel to and from those prefectures shouldn't be an issue; you'd just be going from one stable place to another. The problem would be transportation links- anyone going from one Japanese region to another [for example, Kyushu to Touhoku] will likely have to transfer somewhere such as Haneda or Itami, or ride on a Shinkansen with people from all over the country. At which point you've essentially defeated the goal of staying inside low-case load prefectures.
A small number of direct flights or looong road trips may be possible, but not feasible for many travelers.
Have to agree with the other posters on here; it's just not the right time for this. Postpone it.
Haaa Nemui
Who exactly benefits from this campaign? If they aren’t canceling/postponing simply because they think they will lose face, I think making the call to at least delay it will earn them far more respect than what they would lose. It’s just idiotic to be doing it now.
Blattamexiguus
Follow the money and cancel this stupid idea and it's equally stupid promo slogan.
It first came from a vested tourism interested politician. Pork barrel at its best.
why promote travel in the first wave of pandemic?
Don't be another Florida !
Christopher Glen
Wearing your mask while on a web chat. How brave
goldeneagle
Why not just scrap a stupid idea?
Tom Doley
Another one of Abe's failures due to a lack of foresight and common sense. Only if Abe and his oyajis don't fall asleep at work, things could be much better.....
TARA TAN KITAOKA
To succeed. Complete shut down is a must.
therougou
No, they have to deal with the reality that nobody will be on vacation by then, so the whole campaign would be wasted. I guess JT commentators are immune from reality, though.
Richard Gallagher
In Nara, there has been an approximate 50% increase in the SARSCoV-2 infections the past two weeks. For the better part of a month it was hovering around 92 with almost no active cases. Though anecdotal, it is noticeably that numbers of folks are ignoring protocols from masks to social distancing. This is easily seen in cafes and restaurants and in the arcades. Nor are people remaining at home. There is increased pedestrian traffic. An influx of tourists this holiday weekend will punch the numbers up even higher. Stay in your neighborhood or locale and spend money on your local and regional economy.
mmwkdw
Stop passenger flights into the Country, get things under control internally, then party-time.
Orac
This is just another one of a very long list of seriously dumb and expensive ideas by the J-Gov. in their attempt to control the spread of this virus. How are those masks going anyway?
and
Another one of Abe's failures due to a lack of foresight and common sense. Only if Abe and his oyajis don't fall asleep at work, things could be much better.....
Japan:
24,000 cases and 984 covid 19 deaths
Germany
200,000 cases 10,000 deaths
USA
3.8 million cases 150,000 deaths
Gotta love those numbers. and love the Abe masks. Maybe Germany and the US should try them before more Germans and Americans die.
Patricia Yarrow
Why does this article not mention the areas to be constrained? Surely that is Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba at the least. Not just Tokyo.
rgcivilian1
re: article "Japan's prefectural governors decided on Sunday to ask the central government to consider excluding more areas from a travel campaign when necessary to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus."
This is quite interesting, but makes sense.
Heffalump
Quest Japan, Hike Japan walking adventures, is a very small specialist Japanese operator based in Tokyo. All our tours have been cancelled this year. If we're lucky we may get one or two this autumn.
The average spend by each of our clients after arrival in Japan, for a typical 2-week itinerary, is 500,000 yen. This money goes directly to our partners and suppliers, often in rural, mountain, benefiting remoter local communities. It doesn't go into the hands of the likes of JTB, NTA, or Kintetsu. If we have a group of 8, and our group sizes are small, then that means about 4 million yen revenue each tour group for the communities we visit. It may not seem much, but it means a lot to the ryokan, minshuku restaurants, guides etc. we work with.
The future of high value inbound tourism to Japan is now looking uncertain. It certainly is for the foreseeable future. We have younger guests, but many of our clients are active, but retired, and in their 70s.
I wonder if the Japanese government has any plans to help businesses like ours, as well the huge Japanese travel companies with links to government who I suppose will benefit from this controversial Go To campaign.
I somehow doubt we'll be seeing much to spark our sector of the market into life again soon.
gaijintraveller
This is without a doubt the stupidest idea the Abe government has had, even more stupid than his masks, which no one used. Let's subsidise travel, let's subsidise the spread of covid around the country.
By all means subsidise travel at a future date if paid for now. Compensate businesses for loss of business, for closing their business until travel is safe.
To switch overnight from please stay to please, don't stay home, please travel is not just stupid, it is crazy.
Abe, show some sense and some leadership, fire your tourism minister.
drlucifer
Don't get deceived by the numbers for all the other prefectures. They are testing at unbelievable low rate and getting away with it because all the attention is on Tokyo which is testing at a higher rate per J-standard . Osaka has a pop of 8M and test hardly reach 1.000 except last Friday average below 600, Hyogo 5.5M test has never exceeded 500 even now that the virus is on the increase. Tokushima pref pop 730 thousand total test since february 1415 , average of 8 test a day, number of virus related calls to hoken centers approx 19,000
Number of test yesterday sat 68.
therougou
Well the old governor won't want to look bad after calling Tokyo the "root of all evil". Either way, he will blame it on Osaka.
Paul14
Despite the exclusion of Tokyo residents from this subsidy I'm still holidaying over August outside Tokyo. I'll wear a mask and hopefully won't bring you any virus.
yaponezy
Like all other Japanese apologists, you conveniently leave out the number of tests. Even a 5 year old will tell you that the Japanese figures are meaningless.
USA 143,835 tests per 1 million pop
Germany 82,158
Japan 4,952
No tests, no cases. Simple as that. There's already reports out saying Japan has excess deaths in the first half of 2020. They just weren't tested for COVID19.
chunagon
There's already reports out saying Japan has excess deaths in the first half of 2020. They just weren't tested for COVID19.
Please share. All the talk about low testing is senseless without viable alternative stats.
Oxycodin
It might be too late for Japan to recover form this Pandemic....There virus tracking app was is helping? We need a military style lock down for 2 months! A total shutdown of two months max with only Hospital and U.S.A Military humanitarian food aid delivery program in which they make sure that all food aid delivered to each home in Japan is disinfected from the virus. We must stay home to end this pandemic for once and all.
drlucifer
I didn't make up the numbers, you can check online before blaming the messenger. By the way I didn't single out only Hyogo, if you had read l said every prefecture and provided data for Osaka and Tokushima as well. There is nothing I can do If you think that less than 500 pcr test a day is Ok for a prefecture of 5.5M people, I don't and I am taking my own precaution as it is crystal clear there is no intention to curb the increase of this virus.
Aly Rustom
same here