Business isn't as usual in Japan during the World Cup. It is, contrary to what owners of hotels, restaurants and other businesses had hoped, in many cases worse.
"We thought foreigners would come to eat sushi. But we only had one group so far. We're also losing regular customers because they go home and watch soccer games," said a chef at Sushi Sei in Tokyo's popular Ginza shopping district.
Restaurants, clothing stores and amusement venues, such as karaoke bars, Tokyo Disney and Universal Studios Japan, are not faring well in the soccer craze.
PHOTO: AFP
Royal Co, which operates Royal Host family restaurants, saw sales fall by 10 percent. Dynam Co, a Tokyo-based company which operates 118 pachinko parlors, said the number of its customers declined by 35 percent.
"People expected more foreign visitors to come and spend money. Only limited businesses, such as delivery pizza places and electrical appliances stores selling TV sets, are doing well," said Yasuo Goto, an economist at Mitsubishi Research.
Kazutaka Kirishima, an economist at Sumitomo Life Research, said due to ticketing problems and other reasons, fewer foreign tourists made it to Japan for the World Cup than expected.
Kirishima expects foreign visitors to spend a total of ?73 billion (US$584 million), much less than other think tanks had expected before the World Cup started.
Dai-Ichi Life Research, for example, said in its report in January it expected a total expenditure of ?90 billion by foreign tourists.
Hotels stayed empty after London-based Byrom, responsible for reserving rooms for World Cup officials, reserved too many rooms a year ago and cancelled many of them shortly before the tournament kicked off.
"We now have many available rooms because of Byrom's cancellation. We're desperate getting reservations," said an official at Pan Pacific Hotel in Yokohama.
Even official World Cup sponsor McDonald's has been sitting on its hamburgers, despite a special World Cup campaign and selling World Cup-related products.
According to McDonald's Japan, its sales in May were ?31.7 billion, down from ?37.8 billion in May last year.
Flights to South Korea, the co-host of the tournament, also haven't lifted off as expected. Japan's second-largest airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA), cancelled seven of the planned eight Tokyo-Seoul roundtrip charter flights.
Even if fans made it to the stadium, they were keeping a tight grip on their wallet, salespeople said.
"More than 45,000 spectators came but stores near the stadium had less sales than on normal Sundays. Everybody went straight home," said a business owner in Rifu in Miyagi, host of the Mexico-Ecuador match.
HSBC Securities Japan Ltd said in its report on the economic impact of the World Cup that although the World Cup boosts growth by a few tenths of a percentage point, equity markets usually fall after the start of the event.
Judging by previous World Cups, "The market [in host countries] performs rather well in the months before the World Cup, but then sells off sharply," the report said.
In France in 1998, for example, the CAC40 rose 39 percent in the first half of the year, but fell 8.7 percent in the second half of the year.
The key Nikkei index at the Tokyo stock market has dropped 7.2 percent since the start of the World Cup on May 31. The Nikkei closed yesterday's session at 10,920.63.
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station
ALL-IN-ONE: A company in Tainan and another in New Taipei City offer tours to China during which Taiwanese can apply for a Chinese ID card, the source said The National Immigration Agency and national security authorities have identified at least five companies that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese identification cards while traveling in China, a source said yesterday. The issue has garnered attention in the past few months after YouTuber “Pa Chiung” (八炯) said that there are companies in Taiwan that help Taiwanese apply for Chinese documents. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) last week said that three to five public relations firms in southern and northern Taiwan have allegedly assisted Taiwanese in applying for Chinese ID cards and were under investigation for potential contraventions of the Act Governing
‘INVESTMENT’: Rubio and Arevalo said they discussed the value of democracy, and Rubio thanked the president for Guatemala’s strong diplomatic relationship with Taiwan Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Guatemala City on Wednesday where they signed a deal for Guatemala to accept migrants deported from the US, while Rubio commended Guatemala for its support for Taiwan and said the US would do all it can to facilitate greater Taiwanese investment in Guatemala. Under the migrant agreement announced by Arevalo, the deportees would be returned to their home countries at US expense. It is the second deportation deal that Rubio has reached during a Central America trip that has been focused mainly on immigration. Arevalo said his
‘SOVEREIGN AI’: As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for having computing power of 103 petaflops. The governments wants to achieve 1,200 by 2029 The government would intensify efforts to bolster its “Sovereign Artificial Intelligence [AI]” program by setting a goal of elevating the nation’s collective computing power in the public and private sectors to 1,200 peta floating points per second (petaflops) by 2029, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The goal was set to fulfill President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision of turning Taiwan into an “AI island.” Sovereign AI refers to a nation’s capabilities to produce AI using its own infrastructure, data, workforce and business networks. One petaflop allows 1 trillion calculations per second. As of Nov. 19 last year, Taiwan was globally ranked No. 11 for
RSS