Tourism in Japan: from decline to recovery

Abstract

During the 2020–2021 pandemic period the domestic and foreign tourism in Japan was virtually paralyzed due to the need to isolate people from possible exposure of the COVID-19 infection. After the pandemic subsided and the risk of infection decreased in the first half of 2022, Japan began to receive more tourists, which is a sign of the beginning of revival of the country's tourism industry. Japan went through a similar process of tourism recovery after 2011, when the natural and man-made accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant and the danger of radiation damage caused a sharp outflow of tourists from the country. But the fall in tourist flow during the period of COVID-19 that hit the world turned out to be much deeper. The article presents both facts in favor of the start of tourism recovery in Japan as early as 2022, as well as facts that hinder its development. But it seems that the post-pandemic development of tourism in Japan is only a matter of time. However, in 2022 Russian- Japanese tourism was held hostage by the military-political situation in Ukraine: the deterioration of relations between Russia and Japan due to Ukrainian events in the coming years or even decades will not contribute to the rapprochement of the two countries, including the development of mutual tourism.

Keywords

• japan
• tourism
• russian-japanese relations
• soft power
• humanitarian ties
• covid-19