It has taken a long time but Australian travellers are finally returning to Japan. The nation’s tourism industry is experiencing a long-overdue pick-up in demand as we approach the anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that wreaked havoc on large parts of country in March last year.
“With a natural disaster, there’s generally a much quicker recovery than we’re seeing in Japan,” the chief executive of World Expeditions, Sue Badyari, says. ”The recovery has been very slow … we’re sitting at about 30 per cent [sales] of what we were for 2010-11. I think you have to link that to the [fear of] radiation.”
Badyari says the Australian government’s message that it is safe to return to Japan has taken a while to get through to tourists. There has been a notable improvement in bookings since… (click here to keep reading this article by Jane E. Fraser)
