Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday that foreign tourists will be allowed to enter Japan on package tours from June 10, paving the way for the full resumption of inbound tourism, which has been suspended for more than two years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We will resume accepting tourists on package tours with guides from the 10th of next month,” Kishida said in Tokyo. “Step by step we will aim to accept (tourists) as we did in normal times, taking into consideration the status of infections.”

Although Kishida said that Japan’s strict border controls were necessary to buy time to vaccinate the population and ensure that proper health care measures were in place, he added that the government will ease restrictions from here on.