Relief and unease as two years of isolation finally end

After more than two years of near-total isolation, Japan has reopened its borders to overseas visitors - but the road back to the pre-Covid tourism boom could be long and bumpy.

- Justin McCurry

Early this month, the country lifted some of the strictest pandemic border controls in the world when it removed a 50,000 daily cap on arrivals, reinstated waivers for short-term visas and dropped a rule requiring tourists to visit as part of group tours.

The reopening could not have come quickly enough for the world's third-biggest economy, already reeling from the damage inflicted by coronavirus.

The prime minister, Fumio Kishida, is pinning his hopes on free-spending visitors taking advantage of a weak yen, which recently reached a 32-year low against the dollar, to boost businesses and resurrect Japan's reputation as one of the world's must-see countries. In Gion, a popular neighbourhood in Kyoto, local shop owners greeted the return of tourists with a mixture of optimism and trepidation.

"The last couple of years have been really tough," said Hiroko Inoue, the owner of Furouan, a kimono shop.

"My guess is that sales were less than 1% of those before Covid-19." Just over 500,000 foreign visitors have come to Japan so far this year - a fraction of the 31.8 million who arrived in 2019 while the pandemic forced the government to abandon its goal of 40 million visitors by 2020, the year the Tokyo Olympics was pushed back a year.