Russian tourist flow to Japan barely restores

Almost a year has passed since the tragic events at Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, but the Russians are still afraid of high radiation level, even though the country’s major tourist spots were not affected at all. As far back as April 2011 Rostourism withdrew its advice against travel to Japan. But the Russians didn’t listen.

Japanese high tourist season traditionally falls on two periods: one week late March-early April when sakura is in bloom, and November, when Japanese maple trees redden before winter. According to Development Director of Oriental Discovery Company Mr. Vitaly Yefremov, the demand for Japan is now low – just a few occasional bookings. Plus due to high exchange rate of Japanese yen it proved to be impossible to offer last year’s prices – around $4 thousand for a group tour with double accommodation. Today a similar standard itinerary based on 4-star hotels goes for around $6 thousand.

Mr. Yefremov believes it’s going to take several years to restore the demand for Japan in Russia. However, American and European tourists have already started to travel to the land of the rising sun quite actively again. And Chinese and Korean visitors came back to Japan last summer.

Varvarka Tourservice Company is more optimistic about the situation. Tourism manager Ms. Vera Razouvaeva reports that almost 50% of the tourists who had to cancel their trips to Japan last summer have come back. However spring tours in particular have been in highest demand. And those who were coming during the year were mostly looking for combining their business trips with some sightseeing. “As usual the demand started to gain momentum in November, went up in January and now we have bookings. We’ll sum up in the end of spring” – says the talker. New customers are coming as well, but it’s still too early to talk about reaching last year’s level of demand: “We hope that the demand will go up as people are calling and expressing their interest – says Ms. Razouvaeva – moreover some hotels have offered reduced prices, but not for sakura season of course”.

Head of Japanese department of Vand International Tour Ms. Natalia Minorskaya is sure that the number of Russian tourists in Japan has fallen by almost 1000% compared to 2011. “Nevertheless the demand is there. But if before the accident we had groups of 40 people, now we only deal with two groups of six people departing for their already paid for one-week trip in the end of March. But there is still some time, we hope have 15 more tourists” – she explained.

Japan is generally visited by transit FIT tourists on their way to Australia, New Zealand or the Philippines. “These are expensive itineraries with 5-star hotels and private tours with Russian-speaking guides. Japan has always been in demand with businessmen” – explains Ms. Minorskaya, adding that the overall tourist flow to the country has grown by 200-300% compared to the disastrous summer and autumn of 2011, but it is still far from that before the earthquake.

In 2010 Japan was planning to bring the total inbound tourist flow to 20 million people by 2016 and to 25 million by 2020. On average the number of overseas visitors went down by 30% and reached 6.21 million last year. Now Japan National Tourist Organization will have to adjust their expectations, which it has already done by increasing the estimated figure for 2016 by 2 million visitors.