Effects of tourism promotion on COVID-19 spread: The case of the “Go To Travel” campaign in Japan

Abstract

IntroductionOn 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. MethodsThis 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. ResultsThe 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. ConclusionsAlthough the campaign significantly spread COVID-19, the effect was not continuous to permanently change the time-series trend.