Tokyo: Japan’s government is considering reintroducing subsidies aimed at boosting domestic tourism from mid-January, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Sunday.
The move will ease the strain on airlines and hotels hit by shrinking travel from the coronavirus pandemic, and underscore expectations among policymakers that demand will ease through demand to lift the economy out of recession.
The subsidies will be part of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s new pandemic-relief program that is expected to be compiled on Friday.
As COVID-19 infections began to rise, Japan halted a program in December that used taxpayer money to waive hotel and domestic travel fees for domestic tourists.
Nikkei said that at the request of the tourism industry, the government would consider restarting the program in mid-January or from February to the end of April.
The newspaper said the government would offer larger discounts for travel during the weekend than for travel during the weekend, so as not to focus on trips during the weekend.
Nikkei, without citing sources, said it would also reduce the maximum amount of discount per trip compared to the previous schedule.
The government was not immediately available to comment.
Japan’s economy contracted a 0.8% annualized supply shortfall in the third quarter and a state of emergency restrictions to deal with the pandemic hit exports and consumption, according to a Reuters poll.
Analysts expect consumption to pick up after sanctions end on September 30, though China’s slowing growth rate and supply sluggishness have bleak prospects for an export-dependent economy. The government will release the preliminary third quarter GDP data on Monday.
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