Lausanne (AFP)

Hotels that refuse to postpone reservations or reimburse customers, plane tickets may be lost and ultimately salty slates: the enthusiasts who intended to attend this summer at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, postponed by a year due to the coronavirus, navigate between worry and fatalism.

Lisa Delpy, American professor of sport management at the University of Washington, had reserved 31 rooms for her students for 28 nights. Amount of invoice: 90,000 USD (82,300 EUR).

If she does not ask for reimbursement, hoping that her students will be able to free themselves in a year for the Olympic Games now scheduled from July 23 to August 8, 2021, she has however "no guarantee" that her reservations for hotels and plane may be postponed accordingly.

"The only information we have is that it will take time", explains this passionate who was to attend her "20th Olympics, winter and summer combined".

Only consolation for the moment: the Japanese Organizing Committee has assured that "the tickets already purchased will be valid for the same session (of tests) on a new date, if possible".

- 600,000 foreign spectators expected -

But the American academic warns: "If hoteliers and airlines start to be too greedy and refuse to collaborate with spectators and organizations, then the government will have to intervene because this will not be good for Japanese tourism and will tarnish the economy. 'image of Japan ".

In 2018, the Japanese Ministry of Tourism had declared relying on 600,000 foreign spectators for the Tokyo Games, a significant economic windfall.

Many of these visitors, who had already booked their accommodation for sometimes two years, are in the unknown, even at an impasse, three weeks after the postponement.

"I made a reservation two years ago for 6 nights at the Sakura Cross Hotel in Tokyo, for around 60,000 yen (506 EUR) via booking.com", explains a Frenchman, preferring to remain anonymous and who was to attend his 26th OJ.

"I am not asking to recover this amount but just to transfer the reservation to 2021," he adds. The hotel refused. "We cannot take into account specific circumstances", justifies the establishment.

As for transport, "I had taken out insurance with AIG, at the same time as the plane ticket, he explains. But the exact conditions of insurance do not say clearly if the pandemic is covered".

- "A shock" for Japanese hotels -

The postponement of the Olympic Games "is a huge shock for us", recently explained Shigemi Sudo, secretary general of the Association of hotels and ryokan (traditional hostels, note), "because the receipts of many of our hotels have already decreased by half as a result of the collapse in tourism demand, not only from abroad but also from within Japan, due to the coronavirus. "

Hotel bookings fell 30 to 90 percent in March and April compared to the same period in 2019, according to the Japan Tourism Agency (JTA).

Many hotel and tourism companies were therefore counting on the Olympic Games to help them compensate for this year's losses.

Faced with the discontent of foreign tourists like Japanese, some hotel chains are understanding.

"Normally, we would be entitled to withhold cancellation fees, but in this case it is not the customers' fault, so we will not retain these fees," a spokesperson for AFP told AFP recently. Via Inn hotels.

Before mentioning a possible call to the organizers of the Games! "I don't know if we can negotiate compensation with the Olympic officials or not."

An official of the Tokyo-2020 Organizing Committee said that the hotel issue was "under consideration".

Asked by AFP, the IOC indicates that it "is not in a position to comment on the question of hotel or plane reservations" and "encourages" the public who intended to go to the Olympics this year "to s 'address directly' to Tokyo-2020 or to service providers.

"This is a setback, for us as for other sectors," further confirmed to AFP Greg Harney, consultant for Cartan Global, an American agency specializing in packages for the Games.

"We are going to drool for a moment, but we remain optimistic because out of the hundreds of customers we have, very few have asked for reimbursements. They want to go to Tokyo next year and as soon as the coronavirus crisis is over, l 'want to go there will be even stronger,' he concludes.

© 2020 AFP