A company official in a ski resort area of Hokkaido was elated over the expected wave of foreign tourists pouring into Japan, but he quickly expressed a sense of caution.

“We have been waiting for this moment,” said Yusuke Ikeda, who is in charge of marketing at Niseko Alpine Developments. “I hope winter will come without anything bad happening.”

Tourist spots around Japan have high hopes for a business revival after the Japanese government on Oct. 11 lifted most of its remaining COVID-19 border controls.

Planeloads of individual foreign tourists entered the country for the first time in more than two years, and the government the same day also started a subsidy program to promote domestic tourism.

However, many businesses in Japan continue to struggle with the higher prices for fuel and materials. Others face labor shortages.

And the pandemic has not ended.

Niseko Alpine Developments is a real estate company that operates around 10 hotels and condominium buildings in the Niseko area in Hokkaido.

The area is internationally renowned for its ski hills that feature high-quality powder snow.

The towns of Kutchan and Niseko in the center of the area hosted around 3.32 million tourists in fiscal 2018. But the number plummeted to 1.4 million in fiscal 2020 and 1.58 million in fiscal 2021.

Niseko Alpine Developments’ winter sales fell to less than 10 percent of their pre-pandemic levels.

Foreign tourists accounted for more than 95 percent of the company’s winter guests.

With these foreign guests unable to enter Japan, the company had no choice but to attract domestic customers. But Japanese guests generally visit only on weekends, while foreign visitors often stay for several weeks.

To get through the lean times, the company minimized its payroll, partially turned off lights in its accommodations, and cut advertising and communication expenses.

After Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Sept. 22 announced that Japan would reopen to individual foreign travelers, the company was flooded with phone calls and emails.

The company’s head office said its accommodations are fully booked from Christmas to early February mainly by customers from Australia and around Asia.

One hotel will resume business for the first time in about three years, but it is still struggling to find enough part-time workers for the winter season.

“We’ll have to limit the framework of our reservations,” a staff member said.

Another major hotel said it will likely have to keep one of its seven restaurants closed because of labor shortages.

But for the most part, workers feel optimistic.

A new station for the Hokkaido Shinkansen will be built in the area in fiscal 2030, increasing convenience for tourists.

And the Niseko area’s reputation as a top-notch ski area remains intact.

“I’ve heard customers say they’ve never seen such high-quality snow,” a worker at a ski resort said. “We are sure that customers will come back.”

INFLATION A HURDLE

Some tourism companies, hit by increasing prices for fuel, materials and products, have been forced to pass on the higher expenses to their customers.

The 53-year-old operator of a ryokan inn in Hirayu Onsen, located in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, which borders Nagano Prefecture, said he has twice raised accommodation fees to deal with inflation.

He said the national travel discount program, in which the government subsidizes 40 percent of a trip’s cost, should help.

“As long as there are discounts, customers will come,” he said. “But I can’t be all that happy when I think about what will happen after (the program) ends (in late December).”

BREAKING ECONOMIC ISOLATION

Even before the travel subsidy program started on Oct. 11, a rebound in tourism was seen in Takayama.

The city’s two-day Autumn Takayama Festival, considered one of Japan’s three most beautiful festivals, ended on Oct. 10. It featured lines of food stalls for the first time in three years.

“The time has come to break our economic isolation,” Hiroki Arisu, 37, president of a sake brewery in the popular “old town” of the city, said on Oct. 9.

A huge throng of Japanese visitors attended the festival, which is registered on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list.

Before the pandemic, more than 4 million tourists from home and abroad visited Takayama each year.

In 2021, the city received only around 1.95 million visitors.

The number of foreign tourists who stayed at accommodations in Takayama decreased by 99.5 percent from about 610,000 in 2019 to about 3,000 in 2021.

But the number of tourists to the city from January to August this year was 1.8 times that of the same period last year.

“I really feel that customers are coming back,” Arisu said.

He hopes for an increase in not only foreign tourists but also in visitors from distant places in Japan, such as Tokyo.

(This article was written by Satoshi Shinden and Shuhei Yamashita.)