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Effects of tourism promotion on COVID-19 spread: The case of the "Go To Travel" campaign in Japan.
Tamura, M; Suzuki, S; Yamaguchi, Y.
  • Tamura M; Wakayama University, Faculty of Economics, Sakaedani 930, Wakayama-city, Japan.
  • Suzuki S; NUCB Business School, Graduate School of Management, 1-3-1 Nishiki Naka-ku, Nagoya, Japan.
  • Yamaguchi Y; Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, 4-4 Sagamine, Komenoki, Nisshin, Japan.
J Transp Health ; 26: 101407, 2022 Sep.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1867437
ABSTRACT

Introduction:

On July 22, 2020, the Japanese government launched the "Go to Travel" campaign that subsidizes 50% of personal travel expenditure to support the tourism industry under the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy was controversial from the viewpoint of infection spread and was temporarily cancelled in December 2020, though there was no statistical evidence.

Methods:

This is the first study that measures the extent to which this campaign increased COVID-19 cases. This study regards the campaign as a natural experiment although Tokyo and its commuting areas experienced the same time-series trends of COVID-19 cases before the "Go To Travel" campaign, this campaign was implemented in areas outside Tokyo, but not in Tokyo. Then, the comparison (difference-in-differences) yields the campaign's effect.

Results:

The estimation shows that the "Go To Travel" campaign significantly raised the increment rate of cases by 23.7%-34.4% during July 30-August 4. There is no significant effect after August 5. In addition, our simulation identified the number of campaign-related cases in each city.

Conclusions:

Although the campaign significantly spread COVID-19, the effect was not continuous to permanently change the time-series trend.
Keywords

Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Experimental Studies Language: English Journal: J Transp Health Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: J.jth.2022.101407

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Experimental Studies Language: English Journal: J Transp Health Year: 2022 Document Type: Article Affiliation country: J.jth.2022.101407