Japan is now hoping that a full fledged opening of Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to international flights will bring more foreign travelers into the country. The transport minister for Japan said this on Saturday just ahead of the country’s big push to promote tourism.
Sumio Mabuchi, the Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism Minister, said that he believes that more foreign travelers will visit regional cities via Haneda by using extensive domestic networks as regular international flights start. He also hopes that this will lead to their discovery of new tourist attractions and tourism routes.
Haneda Airport has been handling regular extensive international flights this month after a three decade break. Right now Japan is trying to fend off competition from rising Asian rivals and make tourism one of its driving forces for its country’s growth.
Right now the airport itself is limited to domestic flights and a limited number of flights to and from a few East Asian cities. This has left the airport in the shadow of the much larger Narita International airport, which is just outside the capital.
Experts, however, agree that this big upgrade is good. They state that Haneda is far more convenient for travelers. It is located just 20 minutes by monorail from the heart of Tokyo. It takes more than double that time to reach Narita, which is located some 40 miles away from Tokyo.
Overall, this is a big step forward for this airport. If all goes according to plan then Japan can expect to see more tourists from all over the world entering its borders soon. This goes double for tourists from America that tend to have a strong likely for Japan and all that it offers.