Tourism minister Kazuyoshi Akaba announced Tuesday that the government would boost funding for its Go To Travel campaign — a ¥1.35 trillion government plan to promote domestic tourism — after some travel agencies restricted the discounts they were offering amid a surge in reservations.
The campaign was intended to subsidize 35 percent of travel expenses — or up to ¥14,000 — per stay per individual. Rather than being reimbursed by the government after sales were made, funding for the discounts was allocated in advance to individual travel agencies based on the reservations anticipated in the agencies’ sales plans.
As a result, several travel agencies have reduced the value of discounts applied or suspended reservations for trips to certain parts of the country as they have approached the limit of their allocations for the subsidies.
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