HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Tourism is a two-way street and in 2024 Japan and the United States will be promoting travel between the two countries, to include Guam.
On Wednesday, the U.S. and Japan signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to formally declare 2024 as Tourism Year between the two countries, the U.S. Embassy in Japan announced in a press release.
According to U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, the initiative is a “game-changer.”
For tourism on Guam, a U.S. territory, this means a couple of things in the year to come.
First, 2024 will be a year “for both the U.S. and Japanese governments to promote exchanges in tourism.” Secondly, “Japan will participate in Global Entry with the U.S. This will make it unnecessary for Japanese nationals to go through the procedures upon arrival in the U.S.,” Guam Visitors Bureau President Carl Gutierrez told The Guam Daily Post.
With Japan joining the global entry program in 2024, Japanese citizens will be able to skip immigration at the airport.
U.S.-Japan Tourism Year – a first for both countries, the release said – seeks to “promote greater travel, business and tourism in both directions.”
“This initiative isn’t just about travel. It’s about strengthening ties, boosting economies and exchanging culture. As we rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, together, we will set the stage for increased growth of Japanese travelers to the United States, and American travelers to Japan, in 2024 and beyond,” Emanuel said.
Tetsuo Saito, Japan’s minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, was equally enthused as the initiative presents an opportunity for the two countries.
“The U.S.-Japan Tourism Year aims to restore and expand exchange between the U.S. and Japan in both directions. We hope the Tourism Year will provide an opportunity for all of us to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances with whom we have fallen out of touch due to the pandemic,” Saito said.
The U.S. Embassy said in the release that before COVID-19, “Japan was the second-largest overseas source of travelers for the United States, annually sending 3.8 million visitors and contributing $13 billion in spending for the U.S. economy.”
As of October 2023, the Japan market for the U.S. rebounded to 46% of pre-pandemic numbers.
For Guam, arrivals from Japan during October 2023 were close to 50% recovered from fiscal year 2019, according to Gutierrez, who said October is typically a slow month for the island. He further noted that 350,000 Japanese arrivals are projected for fiscal year 2024.
A couple of pre-pandemic tourists take a selfie in Tumon in this file photo from Oct. 11, 2017. On Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, the U.S. and Japan signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to formally declare 2024 as Tourism Year.
