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Remember the 10000 free flights Japan was going to set aside 1.1B ¥ for? It was meant to bring foreigners into the country to help with its recovery but it seems that Japan has recovered enough not to need to the incentive.
As the recovery from the earthquake is an ongoing urgent task, Japan has been vigorously working towards its restoration with the support from the world. Almost all of Japan has been back to normal and ready to welcome visitors. We are sincerely looking forward to having you to see Japan with your own eyes.
I guess this is a good thing for Japan and a bad thing to some hopeful travellers. Have a read of the Japan Tourism Agency Press Release for more info.
Kind of a good thing I have to say, I think the money is better spent on further earthquake restorations.
I was thinking about this the other day. IT would be much more helpful if instead of offering a free ticket lottery, they entered a partnership with the airline industry to subsidize flights for tourism during a certain period. A $600 roundtrip ticket from the US (or anywhere else where the average is $800-1400) would probably stimulate tourism much more than 10,000 random people waiting to see if they’re lucky. In addition, they could really push the JR rail pass since it’s not as well known as it should be and definitely worth it (I couldn’t use it regularly enough so have yet to try it, but the price is right!).
Well it was never really planned to be the money aside for it, the plan was barely being proposed to the government for approval when the hype got out.
I had heard about this proposal awhile back. I can see what the intention of the original idea was, but as Yggbert said, that’s a lot of money that could be put to much better use WITHIN Japan, instead of trying to temporarily boost tourism. Granted, I really like Ian’s idea of making flights to Japan cheaper temporarily, just for my own selfish reasons ;)
I’d be interested to know how the Japanese Tourism Agency defines ‘normal’ when it says that “almost all of Japan has returned to normal”. I hate to argue over semantics, but am I the only one who thinks that it seems really soon to declare Japan as back to normal? Please correct me if I’m wrong. That which I do know is only from photos so I apologize if I’m way off base.
It’s definitely not back to normal everywhere, my friend who lives in Gunma prefecture says that the area only 30km north of where she lives is contaminated, and it’s nowhere near the power plants.
:(
“Normal” as in “conforming to our expectations for the future”. The nuclear outpouring will take at least a few decades, as will the rebuilding in places like Sendai. As far as Tokyo is concerned, everything that happened was tragic, unavoidable, but no longer a day-to-day concern. So I guess they can put those subway ads back at full brightness…
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