Japan Data

Japan Tourism Agency Announces Rules for Visiting Tour Groups

Travel Economy Guide to Japan

The Japan Tourism Agency has announced guidelines for the country’s reopening to international visitors participating in group tours from June 10.

Japan is making a cautious reopening to international tourists on June 10, initially limited to visitors in guided tours from countries categorized as low-risk due to low levels of COVID-19 positivity. The Japan Tourism Agency has prepared guidelines for travelers and guides, as summarized below.

Measures to prevent infection

  • Tour operators must ensure that visitors wear masks, disinfect their hands, avoid the “three Cs” (confined and enclosed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings), and purchase medical insurance.
  • Visitors must register in advance at Visit Japan Web.
  • Visitors must agree that infractions may lead to them not being able to continue to participate in the tours.
  • To make it easier to identify close contacts, there must be a record of tour participant activities. To reduce the number of close contacts, there must be fixed seating arrangements in restaurants and other establishments.

Emergency measures, such as in the event of a visitor testing positive

  • Tour operators must provide information in advance to guides about multilingual medical institutions and specialist medical interpreters.
  • In the event of a positive case, the visitor should be promptly removed from the tour group and examined at a medical institution. It should be explained to other participants that if they are not close contacts, they can continue with the tour.

(Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)

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