Households budget more for summer trips than in 2019

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Japanese households’ average budget for this year’s summer holiday rose for the first time in four years to exceed the level in 2019, before the COVID-19 crisis, a survey showed Monday.

The average budget grew 1.3-fold from a year before to ¥68,632 per household, according to the survey by Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co.

Many people apparently have made travel and other plans for the first summer holiday period without COVID-19 restrictions on people’s movements in three years.

The survey was conducted June 20-24. But new infection cases started surging later, repeatedly hitting daily records recently.

The novel coronavirus resurgence “may dampen the growing demand for travel,” said Yuichi Kodama, economist at Meiji Yasuda Research Institute Inc.

About 25% of all households surveyed said that they will increase their summer holiday expenditures from last year. About half of them said they will raise their budgets to go on a trip.