I think there were many people who enjoyed the long holidays with no restrictions on movement, and the first trip and leisure in a long time. At the time of planning, I think what I was worried about was "how crowded it will be this year", but how was it actually compared to your expectations?

This time, big data analysis of mobile phones revealed that there is a difference between regions where the number of people has almost recovered to the level before the spread of infection and regions where recovery has been slow.

What about cross-prefecture travel?

NHK used data collected by NTT DoCoMo in a privacy-protected manner from mobile phone base stations to examine the number of people who traveled across prefectures for nine days from the 29th of last month, when the long holiday period began.

* Data provided by: Mobile Spatial Statistics (docomo Insight Marketing)
* Target: 9~15 years old. Foreign tourists visiting Japan are not included.
* Period: Comparison of the average value in the 79 p.m. range during the long holidays of each year.

Here is a figure comparing the results of the long holiday period every year with 2019 as 100% before the spread of infection.

In 2020, immediately after the spread of infection, it fell sharply to 35%, but since then it has gradually recovered, reaching 88% last year, a significant increase from 61% the previous year.

On the other hand, the duration of this year's long holiday period was 88%, almost the same as last year.

Where did the people who moved go?

When counting where people who traveled across prefectures visited, the largest number was ▽ Tokyo at 2019%, which was higher than in 101 before the spread of infection,

followed by ▽ Okinawa Prefecture at 99%,
▽
Osaka and Kanagawa Prefecture at 96%,
and Saitama Prefecture at 95%.

It had almost recovered to the level before the spread of infection.

On the other hand,
Aomori Prefecture accounted for 69%, Akita
Prefecture 71%, Nagasaki and Kagoshima Prefectures 72%, and
Miyazaki Prefecture 74%,
with a
total of 18 prefectures accounting for less than 8% before the spread of infection.

Expert "Changes in people's travel patterns in Corona?"

Professor Kuniaki Sasaki of Waseda University, who is an expert in the analysis of the movement of people, commented, "I thought that the flow of people had returned to some extent during this long holiday, so I was surprised that the results were almost the same as last year. However, it is possible that people's travel patterns have changed due to the continued self-restraint caused by the corona disaster. As a result, while tourism demand in metropolitan areas has recovered, the return of people to rural areas, especially to distant areas and rural areas with many elderly people, is thought to be slowing, and there are concerns about the impact on local economies in the future."