Covid-19: Spectator ban from Olympic Games could lead to 'a million hotel room cancellations'

TOKYO (July 23): The decision to ban spectators from the Japan Olympic games due to the fourth Covid-19 emergency in Tokyo could lead to more than a million hotel room cancellations in in the city, reported Bloomberg.

The figure is based on 30% of ticket holders for the games coming from outside the greater Tokyo area, and each of them planning to stay at least one night in a hotel.

Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute economist Hideo Kumano said the latest Covid-19 emergency will very likely trigger more bankruptcies.

“And you can’t dismiss the impact on the national mood of making the Olympic spectator-less,” he said.

This latest setback puts further pressure on the local hotel industry that bet big on the summer games serving as a springboard for Japan’s wider economic goal of attracting 40 million overseas visitors a year.

The news report, citing Makiko Furusato and her husband, who run a boutique Japanese-style ryokan hotel located within a 15-minute drive of four of the major venues for the games, said that they now have to deal with both cancellations and competition from other hotels.

“We opened in October 2019 and right away we got hit by the pandemic… We had big hopes and expectations for the Olympics. Now this, just as we were hoping to get some money coming in,” she said.

Furusato and her husband previously helped run a hotel in a resort town west of Tokyo. They saw the games as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to relocate and start their own boutique inn. They picked the location specifically with the Olympics in mind.

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