Travel
Japan Reopens Borders, Betting on Tourism Recovery Boom
- Opening-day travelers cite weak yen as fuelling their haste
- Spending, visitors seen returning to pre-pandemic levels
Japan began accepting vaccinated visitors from 68 countries without visas Tuesday, ending almost three years of tighter border controls that kept tourists out of the island nation.
First-time and repeat visitors alike streamed out of Tokyo’s Haneda airport on the first day of the reopening, keen to take advantage of the yen’s quarter-century lows against the US dollar, along with relatively tame inflation.