Starting this Saturday, Japan will increase its daily cap on tourists from 20,000 to 50,000, and for the first time since it began allowing visitors in June, after a shutdown of more than two years.
In addition, while visitors will still be required, for now, to come as part of a package tour, tour members will now be free to wander on their own rather than being required to have a guide with the group at all times.
Japan’s tourism industry is badly in need of a restart after the shutdown, and the guided-tour only arrangement has not been popular; only a bit over 8,000 foreign tourists arrived in the country in June and July.
