Tokyo Olympics spectator ban hits restaurants already battling Covid-19 curbs, but there’s an upside – no visitors means more seats for locals
- Michelin-star restaurants in Japan that drew overseas visitors have instead welcomed local diners since borders were shut 16 months ago because of Covid-19
- That will cushion the blow of a spectator-free Olympics for some, while the lack of visitors has seen restaurants launch collaborations to keep diners coming
Before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, international tourism to Japan was surging. According to government statistics, the number of travellers to the country increased more than 250 per cent from 2012, reaching a record high of 31.9 million visitors in 2019.
With the coronavirus pandemic showing no signs of waning, visitors from abroad are still barred from entering the country. The move has exacerbated the woes of the country’s hard-hit hospitality industry, which has been struggling with more than a year of restrictions limiting opening hours and other aspects of operations for restaurants and bars. According to data from Tokyo Shoko Research, 842 food and beverage establishments filed for bankruptcy in 2020.
The travel ban dealt a sharp blow to some of Tokyo’s leading restaurants in spring 2020 – a peak travel time when tourists typically flock to Japan to view the cherry blossoms.
“Before the pandemic, 80 to 90 per cent of our guests were from overseas – places like South Africa, South America and Europe. International tourists tend to book far in advance, so the first month was extremely difficult for us,” says Yoshihiro Narisawa, of two-Michelin-star Narisawa in the Japanese capital’s Aoyama district.
Revenue at both Narisawa’s fine-dining restaurant and Bees Bar, the casual dining bar down the road, fell dramatically in the first month of the visitor ban, but the chef says reservations at Narisawa began to stabilise in May last year.
