Japan has removed its rule that visitors to the country must be part of a guided tour party, as part of its ongoing relaxing of its Covid travel restrictions.
The country’s government recently said that – as of September 7 – international visitors will no longer need to show a negative Covid-19 PCR test ahead of entering the country, so long as they are fully vaccinated with three doses of a vaccine.
Now, the country has said tourists on non-guided package tours can visit on an individual basis. That rule will also change from September 7, which is expected to raise the number of daily in-bound visitors to Japan from 20,000 to 50,000 people.
Japan has been one of the slowest to reopen to in-bound tourism and has only done so very gradually over the past few months.
As a result of the extended lockdown on tourist numbers, Japan’s economy has been one of the slowest to recover from the pandemic shock of the past two and a half years.
Japan actually reopened its borders to international visitors in June, but has struggled to attract tourists due to it still maintaining strict quarantine and visitor requirements.
