The government plans to support the revival of tourism in earthquake-hit Kyushu by subsidizing repair costs for hotels and offering accommodation discounts to Japanese and foreign visitors, government sources say.

The government sees the recovery of tourism as crucial to the region, damaged by powerful earthquakes in April, given that it is a key industry that has a major impact on other business sectors and jobs, the sources said Saturday.

A set of support measures is expected to be finalized by the end of the month, with expenses to be mainly financed with ¥700 billion the government has earmarked for quake recovery efforts in the fiscal 2016 supplementary budget.