Photo/Illutration A courtyard is surrounded by the rest facility of the State Guest House, Akasaka Palace in the Yotsuya district of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward. (Amane Sugawara)

A rest facility opened outside the State Guest House, Akasaka Palace, which had become a popular tourist spot before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

The one-story facility with a basement floor is located inside the park in front of the Guest House and has a total floor space of about 1,160 square meters.

It houses a cafe and a shop that offers sweets, wine and other exclusive products.

Anyone can rest there for free, even if they do not enter the Guest House.

The resting facility was initially planned to encourage tourism and deal with an expected surge in visitors for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

But the novel coronavirus pandemic has delayed the Games to summer 2021. The outbreak in Japan also pushed back the scheduled April start of the rest facility.

Construction began in fiscal 2018, and the facility debuted on June 4, three days after the Guest House reopened on an advance-reservation basis.

“We hope it will be a place to relax not only for visitors to the Guest House but also for local residents,” a Cabinet Office official said.

Since 2016, the government has opened the Guest House to the public throughout the year.

The Guest House attracted around 2,000 visitors a day between April 2017 and March 2020, but rest areas were limited to inside the building.

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