Nikkei Inc. – June 14, 2016 – TOKYO — Tourism continues to struggle in southwestern Japan two months after major earthquakes, with hotel guests in Kumamoto and Oita prefectures at only 60% of normal levels in late May.
The sector is a key industry in the Kyushu region, which includes the two prefectures. Expectations are growing that the central government will come to the aid of affected businesses.
Garden spring waters have gradually returned at the city’s famed Suizenji Jojuen park, with normal operations resuming in June. But visitor traffic remains at around 60% of the usual levels.
Kumamoto Prefecture’s emergency response headquarters estimates a toll exceeding 90 billion yen from the April quakes, including damage to facilities and cancellations at hotels.
Guests at city-run hot-spring facilities in Oita’s Beppu languish at about 70% of year-earlier levels, according to the municipal government. In Kumamoto, overnight guests at Kurokawa Onsen hot-spring resorts in the town of Minamioguni numbered around 30% as much as a year earlier in May. This has improved to around 50% in June, according to a local hotel association.
The central government will fully support the key industry of tourism in the Kyushu region, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in Oita on Monday. He touched on travel coupons, which are subsidized in the fiscal 2016 supplementary budget and will offer discounts on hotel stays across the region. A hotel manager in Beppu expressed hope that younger guests from Fukuoka and elsewhere will return quickly with the summer break coming up in July.
JR Kyushu will restore bullet train service to pre-quake levels from July 4. Operations at Kumamoto Airport are back to normal.
As aftershocks continue in the area, communicating accurate information both inside and outside Japan will be key to minimizing the negative impact on tourism.