Earthquake devastates Japan's tourism

The March 11 earthquake, popularly known as the Great East Japan Earthquake, not only devastated the Tohoku region but also the country's industrial sector.The most powerful quake to hit Japan, which measured 9.0 on the Richter scale, was followed by a tsunami.Then it was the nuclear radiation scare when the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power reactor plant in the Fukushima Prefecture was hit.

With the damage to many power plants, it is estimated that it will take years before electricity output in eastern Japan returns to pre-quake level.The Tohoku area, well-known as one of the most scenic spots in Japan, occupies the north eastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan, which consists of six prefectures.

The disaster has sharply reduced foreign tourist arrivals to Japan. According to a Japan National Tourism Organisation report, the number of foreign visitors dropped by 62.5 per cent in April from a year earlier, a record decline.

The number of visitor arrivals declined to 295,800, falling below 300,000 for the first time since May 2003, when tourism was severely hurt by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome epidemic.The March total dropped was 50.3 per cent but if the period is limited to March 12, the day after the massive quake, to March 31, the year-on-year decline will widen to 73 per cent.

Yuka Miyazaki, deputy director, trade policy division of the Trade Policy Bureau, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said the radiation caused by the nuke power plant malfunction after the quake and tsunami, was now confined to a 30-metre radius of the plants in Fukushima, about 230km north of Tokyo.She said the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), Japan's largest electricity supplier, had taken steps to restore the plant's troubled reactor.

Miyazaki, who was given the task to clarify the situation in the Fukushima area, spoke to Bernama at her Meti office in Tokyo recently."The Japanese government and Tepco have made utmost efforts to prevent the dispersion of flow-out of radioactive contaminated water, dust, debris and vapour," she said.

To ensure food safety, she said, Japan has also inspected radioactivity in food every day and restricted distribution of food that failed to meet provisional regulation values.This writer was in Yokohama from May 15 to May 21 to attend the Malaysian Automotive Industry Exhibition, which was held concurrently with Automotive Engineering Exposition.

The exhibition and expo were held from May 18-20.Tadashi Mizushima, representative director of PNB Management (Japan) Co Ltd, who also agreed with Miyazaki, said the situation was now under control."Except for the area around (radius 30km) of Fukushima, other places in Japan are safe," he said.

Toshiba Corp chairman, Atsutoshi Nishida, who led a Japanese delegation to a three-day Global Travel and Tourism Summit in the US end-May, had asked other countries to help revive the tourist industry as the country was "now safe and free of health concerns.""Japan is safe. Each region of the country is now working to bring back tourists," he said.

On May 16, the US State Department said it was safe for its citizens to travel through its suggested 80-km evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima No 1 nuclear power plant on the Tohoku Shinkansen and Tohoku Expressway.But the US government remained firm on its advice for its citizens to evacuate the zone around the plant, saying the situation at the troubled plants "remains serious and dynamic."

"The US government believes it is safe for its citizens to use the railway and expressway for transit through the area," it said in a statement.The decision was based on measurements taken by US scientists, the department said, adding that these transport routes were currently open for public use.

On May 25, Wisma Putra lifted its advice against non-essential travel to Japan, saying the situation there has improved.Malaysians, however, were still advised to defer non-essential travels to areas in the northeast of the country which was still experiencing the adverse effects of the quake and tsunami, it said in a statement.

"They should avoid travelling to and within the 80km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and to strictly observe the exclusion zone in the Fukushima Prefecture that has been imposed by the Government of Japan as off-limit areas to the general public," it said.

Since mid-April, some group tours had resumed from China and South-East Asia but the Japan National Tourism Organisation said "concern about the nuclear crisis has not been wiped out and will likely linger on."

Source = mysinchew