Photo/Illutration Kokusai Street in central Naha is crowded on May 6. (Shoma Fujiwaki)

The government plans to extend and expand a tourism support program to cover the entire nation from July 1 to bolster a sector that has clamored for help in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The “kenmin wari” discount program was scheduled to expire at the end of June.

However, the government plans to continue the program as an “economy-boosting measure” ahead of the Upper House election next month.

Under the program, the central government provides subsidies to individual prefectural governments to cover half of the travel costs per traveler, or up to 5,000 yen ($37) per overnight stay. The subsidies also provide up to 2,000 yen in shopping and dining coupons.

Introduced in April 2021, the kenmin wari program was initially limited to travel by residents within a prefecture.

But the parameters were widened from individual prefectures to regional blocs, such as the Kanto and Kinki regions, from April this year.

The program has been now in place in all prefectures except Tokyo, which provides its own travel subsidies.

The expansion of the kenmin wari program will allow travelers from large cities, such as Tokyo and Osaka, to the popular destinations of Hokkaido and Okinawa Prefecture to receive the discounts and coupons.

Both the departure and arrival prefectures must agree to join the program for the travelers to receive the discounts.

Prefectures where new COVID-19 cases are increasing can be excluded from the program.

The program will be suspended in prefectures where a COVID-19 state of emergency has been declared or where pre-emergency measures are in place.

Travelers must be triple vaccinated or show proof of a negative COVID-19 test to be eligible for the discount.

They can also use the kenmin wari program along with other tourism-related discounts offered by local governments.

Another nationwide travel subsidy campaign, called Go To Travel, has been suspended since the end of December 2020 because of the spread of novel coronavirus infections.

Go To Travel was given a budget exceeding 1 trillion yen. Of the unused 830 billion yen, the government plans to allocate 560 billion yen for the prefecture-based discount program.

The tourism industry has been calling for a resumption of the Go To Travel campaign since the COVID-19 situation started settling down in Japan and the government began easing its border controls.

However, some government officials expressed caution regarding the campaign, and not necessarily for safety reasons.

“The Go To Travel campaign does not have a good image,” one official said.

The Go To Travel campaign was introduced in July 2020 despite warnings from infectious disease experts. In autumn that year, novel coronavirus infections spread rapidly, and many people pointed the finger at the administration of Yoshihide Suga for not reviewing the campaign.

The kenmin wari program is considered more flexible to implement or suspend depending on the infection situation in local areas.

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