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As Japan’s Olympics tourism boom turns bust, once-hopeful businesses count the cost
- Tokyo’s target of 40 million foreign tourists in 2020 went by the wayside as the pandemic upended international travel and caused the Games to be delayed
- Some tourism-reliant businesses remain optimistic, but others that invested heavily on the promise of an Olympics-inspired boom are now struggling
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In the fifth instalment of our Tokyo Trail series on key issues surrounding the Olympics, we look at how tourism-reliant businesses that invested heavily in the promise of a Games-inspired boom are faring.
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When Tokyo was announced as host of the 2020 Olympic Games more than eight years ago at the 125th International Olympic Committee session in Buenos Aires, the owner of a popular izakaya bar a little over 18,000km (11,000 miles) away in the Japanese capital danced a little jig of anticipation.
Andy Lunt, the British-born owner of Andy’s Shin Hinomoto, said he was inspired by the announcement – alongside Japan’s hosting of the Rugby World Cup in 2019 and a general upswing in tourism to the country – to invest heavily in upgrading almost every element of his establishment.
He dreamed of making enough money to retire within five years of the Tokyo Games being held, plans that have now been put on hold indefinitely amid the financial pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Closed for five of the past 16 months, and operating at a fraction of its usual capacity the rest of the time, Lunt’s izakaya has been haemorrhaging money to the tune of 5 million yen (US$45,690) every month in operating costs, he said.
“We took the decision to completely redesign and revamp the place as a direct result of Japan winning the right to host the Rugby World Cup and the Olympics,” Lunt said.
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