Japan: two years later, Tokyo reopens its borders to foreign tourists

2022-06-09T23:34:06.280Z

For the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan is reopening to foreign tourists this Thursday, June 9. It is the only G7 country which, for more than two years, has always maintained…

Japan: two years later, Tokyo reopens its borders to foreign tourists

The Covid screening area upon arrival at Tokyo's Haneda Airport.

on June 1, 2022. (illustration).

AFP - KAZUHIRO NOGI

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

For the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Japan is reopening to foreign tourists this Thursday, June 9.

It is the only G7 country which, for more than two years, has always kept its borders tightly closed.

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With our correspondent in Tokyo,

Bruno Duval

Visitors from all over the world are therefore once again welcome in the archipelago, but in limited numbers.

And only in the context of organized trips, which will be subject to draconian health surveillance.

In Asakusa, a very touristic district of Tokyo, the traders are not all on the same wavelength when it comes to the great return of foreign visitors: “

It's very good
!
This will give a little life to this district which was dying out since we no longer saw foreign tourists

there, ”rejoices this woman.

“

I'm impatient,

admits his neighbor

, and, at the same time, super anxious because I haven't spoken English for more than two years!
I hope it will go

“

These tourists will not be able to deviate from their pre-established travel routes or even go to crowded places.
So, alas, it is probably not in the shops of this district that they will spend their money

, ”laments a shopkeeper.

“I am already very stressed”

In the conversations of the inhabitants, but also, on the scale of the whole country, on the social networks, a reason for concern returns in a loop: the wearing of the mask.

“

We see it every day on the television news: not many people wear a mask in Europe or in the United States

, worries the manager of a hotel establishment.

If foreign customers do the same in my hotel, it will go wrong with Japanese customers.
I already stress a lot about having to manage these tensions.

The government has warned that it will be intractable: the slightest breach of the very strict health protocol which will govern these organized trips will lead to the immediate expulsion of the tourists concerned.

Japan: two years later, Tokyo reopens its borders to foreign tourists

Japan: two years later, Tokyo reopens its borders to foreign tourists

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