TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan's Golden Week holiday kicked off on Saturday, with train stations and airports across the country packed with tourists as fears over the spread of COVID-19 eased, while the yen's sharp decline against other currencies made it more expensive to travel overseas.
“I'm going on a graduation trip, which I couldn't do because of the coronavirus pandemic. I want to enjoy a night safari,” said 26-year-old Rika Uechi at Tokyo's Haneda Airport before flying to Singapore with a university friend.
At the airport's Terminal 2, tourists flooded the international departure hall, which was reopened in July last year after being closed for more than three years due to the pandemic.
A woman who works in Japan and was returning to Taiwan said, “I'm afraid that the cost of souvenirs will be higher (due to the weak yen) when I return to Japan. I have prepared more money than usual.”
It's been almost a year since Japan downgraded the threat level of COVID-19 to the same category as seasonal flu and significantly eased health measures that discouraged people from going out.
“It's still hard to take off the face mask (because of the risk of infection). But I'm looking forward to meeting my parents,” Chiho Okamura said at Tokyo Station before flying to Hyogo Prefecture in western Japan with her three-month-old son.
More than 2.6 million people were booked on domestic flights from Saturday to May 6, almost the same level as last year's holiday season, and 490,000 on international flights, up about 20 percent, the airlines said on the 19th. April.
For the shinkansen bullet train and other rail services, a total of 2.96 million seats were booked for Friday through May 6, up 16 percent from a year earlier, according to an April 11 announcement by Japan's six railway operators. A 7 percent increase compared to 2018, before the coronavirus pandemic.
Congestion is expected to peak on May 3 and 6, rail companies said.
