Finally you can now start planning Mt. Fuji travel experience on your Japan trip.
It was announced last week that the Japanese government was to resume accepting foreign tourists from 10 June onward, reportedly limited to organized group tours with tour leaders at first.
The government has been gradually easing border measures since March.
The current upper limit for the number of arrivals (including returnees) is 10,000 per day, and the limit will increase to 20,000 per day starting June.
And last week Japan Tourism Agency started a demonstrative project to conduct the necessary verification for the future resumption of inbound tourism.
The project is currently accepting several small package tour-style tour groups to Japan from four countries: the United States, Australia, Thailand, and Singapore.
Yesterday I had a chance to be a part of this project by guiding an Aokigahara tour for the travelers from the US, one of the tour groups in the project, as they visited the Mt. Fuji area according to their itinerary.
However, these Japan tours are subject to various restrictions, such as following a predetermined itinerary and having their activities managed by domestic travel agencies, so it is unlikely that this verification project alone will actually be enough for the resumption of full acceptance of inbound tourism.
There seem to be various issues to be addressed, including the establishment of an acceptance system in immigration and quarantine, and I feel that it is about time for the government to present a concrete roadmap for what steps will be taken in the future to ease regulations.
You can find the latest information here.
Coronavirus (COVID-19) advisory information _ Travel Japan _ JNTO
These are the latest updates and the current situation, and even if there is a step forward and backward in the future, the overall situation is considered to be "progressing".
Since there is still some uncertainty for the time being about the resumption of accepting tourists to Japan, it would be realistic to wait until this fall or later to visit Japan if you are going to travel on your own independently.
However, you can start planning your local travel experience right away.
Experienced guide as travel experience architect will accompany you to create an optimal personalized Mt. Fuji journey.