Amended Guidelines for International Tourists to Japan

In line with Prime Minister Kishida’s announcement last week regarding relaxing the restrictions on entering Japan, the new guidelines were released.

As I wrote last week, the 3 main changes were:

(1) Tours can be unescorted, but must be “packaged tours”. 
(2) PCR test will no longer be necessary, if the traveler is vaccinated 3 times.
(3) Maximum number of people entering Japan, including Japanese nationals, will be increased to 50,000 per day

Changes will come into effect on September 7, 2022.

I think the main focus here was about the definition of “packaged tours”.  The guideline states that the visitor must book his/her international tickets to/from Japan as well as all accommodations in Japan through a travel agent.  The intention of this restriction is to enable the travel agent to be responsible to support the visitor if any covid-related accident should occur during the visit.

It’s still far from an ideal way of traveling, but another step forward.