So Japan is paying people to travel during the Pandemic
♪music♪
Yeah, you heard me
During the middle of a pandemic,
Japan is not only encouraging its residents to travel,
but actually paying them to travel and vacation all around Japan
Tokyo residents who were excluded over the last couple of months
will be included from October 1st
And as you can see behind me,
I'm at the Tokyo Haneda Airport
right now to better explain all of this
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All right, fasten your seat belts because this video might get a little bit bumpy!
So the Japanese government, earlier this July launched
a Go To Travel campaign worth
1.35 trillion yen, about 12.7 billion dollars
Basically, this government-sponsored campaign offers anyone living in Japan
up to 50% off all of their travel, including hotel and transportation
such as flights and trains,
just as long as they book through one of the specified travel agencies
And this also includes foreigners living in Japan
Each person can get up to a 20,000 yen discount per night,
which is about 190 US dollars, for an unlimited amount of nights!
And basically, this campaign goes until the funds run out,
which is expected to be in early 2021
Obviously, there are some restrictions, but you can also book day-trips
and hotels on your own, but at a lower subsidy rate
Nonetheless, the government is really
giving people financial incentives to travel during this time
What do you think? You think it's the right move?
How does it compare to your country?
Let's look around to see how this campaign is working
So I'm at the arrival gate in the domestic terminal and you can see
it's quite busy right now
The domestic terminals have been relatively quite early on this year
But since the government notified Tokyo residents
that they would be included in the campaign
it gave many people who were on the fence about traveling
a reason to start flying again
Most Japanese have been compliant with the government's safety
recommendations from the start
Many people stayed home these last few months and
avoided going out unless absolutely necessary,
such as for work or shopping for essentials
I mean, look around in this video;
you'll be hard-pressed to find a single person walking around without a mask
But then, the government decided to run this travel all over Japan without
a care in the world campaign; and it sort of gave the entire country
a green light to travel again, even before Tokyo was included in the campaign
This was especially the case
a couple weeks back during Silver Week in Tokyo,
when Japan went on a four-day holiday
The domestic terminals were packed with travelers
who finally needed a release after months of quarantine
So unlike the domestic terminals, in the international terminals
you'll find that a lot of the stores have either closed down temporarily
or permanently
With most international flights limited, there just isn't enough customer traffic
to keep these stores open
Pre Pandemic, all of these shops would be open
but at this time only a few remain
You can even see that the check-in counters are almost all-empty
It's a bit eerie being here compared to the domestic side,
but only time will tell to see how many businesses
are able to survive during this Pandemic
Let me go back a few months and explain how this
whole Go To Travel campaign started because
it didn't start off as the smoothest campaign ever
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Great water break, let's continue on!
So like many government campaigns,
this one was met with a lot of controversy
Mainly because we're in the middle of a pandemic
and many residents feared that running this campaign
would increase the spread of infection
And on top of that, some people are angered
that the government was using taxpayer money to fund this campaign
So what the government decided to do was make it okay for everyone in
Japan to travel except for people living in Tokyo
Hey, wait! That's me! The reason being Tokyo had the highest
number of reported infections in all of Japan
And so the Japanese government decided to start
the Go To Travel campaign in July, but with Tokyo excluded
So Tokyo residents couldn't participate,
but on top of that,
anyone living outside of Tokyo couldn't travel to Tokyo
and receive the government subsidy
Which again, no surprise, pissed a lot of Tokyo residents off
First, the reason for being excluded from the campaign
didn't make a whole lot of sense
Since other areas in Japan included in the campaign
had a higher rate of infection than Tokyo at the time
Areas such as Okinawa, Osaka, and Fukuoka
all had higher infection rates
Of course, Tokyo would likely have the highest number of infections
because they have the highest population in Japan
To say the least, it was unsettling
for Tokyo residents that the government encouraged
travel to areas with higher infection rates when Tokyo itself was barred
And, Tokyo residents were also upset
that they were funding a lot of the campaign
On average, Tokyo residents pay the most taxes in the country
because they have the highest income
And like most government campaigns, it is funded by tax payer dollars
Which finally brings us to now
As of October 1st,
Tokyo will be included in the Go To Travel campaign
Mainly the reason being, is that the campaign
didn't go as well as the government expected it would go
without including Tokyo
Excluding Tokyo pretty much meant
that they didn't have the numbers to make an impact on domestic tourism
So the government backtracked and
finally included Tokyo in the Go To Travel campaign
Well, what does that mean for the country?
For me, a resident of Tokyo,
it pretty much means the government maybe paying for my next trip,
but at what risk?
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary at the time, Suga, and now Prime Minister,
reported that 5.56 million people participated in the campaign
and only 6 people were infected through the service
Those numbers sound pretty encouraging, what do you think?
Even those numbers, would you feel safe to travel?
But on the other hand,
on this Japan nationwide graph,
you can see a sharp increase in positive cases stating in July
Obviously, it could be a number of factors to explain the increase,
but the increase itself is pretty alarming
It's also worth noting that foreign tourists traveling into Japan
are still prohibited
In the coming months though, foreign residents that were outside
of Japan when the travel bans were put in place
will soon be allowed back into Japan
Finally, the Go To Travel campaign is the first of a four-part campaign
It will be followed by the Go To Eat campaign
Go To Events campaign, and Go To Shopping Streets campaign
I'm quite interested to see how these ones play out as well
Let me know in the comments your thoughts on this
and how it compares to your country
I'll leave you with that
Thanks again to Newton, for helping me film
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I'll catch you guys in the next one!