Japan should look to reinstate its domestic travel incentive program as soon as March to shore up the tourist industry, a senior ruling party official said, even after a study last month indicated the campaign may have spread the coronavirus.
Hiroshige Seko, Upper House secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the Go To Travel program should be brought back after the emergency declaration is lifted. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is set to extend the emergency by a month to March 7.
"There will be demand for travel during the spring school holidays in March, so we should think of doing a Go To campaign to properly support the tourism industry,” Seko said Monday at his offices in the Diet. While some say the campaign helped spread the pathogen, others say tourists tend not to mingle much with local people and therefore don’t present much of a risk, he said.