Hokkaido, a popular tourist spot that draws millions of visitors from around the world every year, has been a hotbed of coronavirus infections in Japan. Now businesses are suffering.
The powder is fresh… and that’s a problem, says Bloomberg TV’s Stephen Engle.
Kiroro on Japan’s Hokkaido island is usually teeming with late-season skiers and snowboarders. But it’s completely empty.
It’s great for practicing wide turns on fluffy powder or snowboard flips down abandoned cat tracks, but devastating for local businesses, which get the bulk of their annual sales from the winter sports season.
“Since the Coronavirus hit Japan, it’s down more than half – 50 percent,” says Azusa Black, co-owner of Double Black Café.
“With the announcement of a state of emergency in Hokkaido, cancelations really started flying in. And we expect to be down in March by at least 60 percent,” adds James Gallagher, co-owner of Ezo Seafoods.
It’s usually a tough table to get at Gallagher’s popular Ezo Seafoods in Niseko but with the outbreak concerns, quarantine threats and mass flight cancelations, the outlook at this point looks bleak.
“With coronavirus, the fear is palpable. I’m concerned about next season as well,” says Gallagher. “I think that people will be reluctant to travel and to spend.”
“It’s totally affected the winter business because generally we’re getting bookings now for next winter. It’s sort of hit a spot where it’s just stopped,” says Hokkaido Outdoor Adventures founder Patrick O’Keeffe. “There’s been no bookings coming in.”
It’s one of the toughest businesses environments O’Keeffe has seen in his 22 years running an outdoor adventure company. Not only has it meant an early end to winter back country touring but, combined with one of the worst winter snow packs on record… it’s also threatening the summer white water rafting season – especially if the July and August Tokyo Olympic Games are axed.
“Summer is where I make a lot of my main income,” adds O’Keeffe. “I was hoping for a big season. But it’s looking quite the opposite.”
“We’re going to get a big hit,” says Black.
And that could spell a slowdown in what’s been, by far, Japan’s hottest property market over the past decade as Asia’s wealthy carve a slice of what some have called the Aspen of Asia – minus, at least for now, the usual crowds.
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