A mere 17.5 per cent of Japanese citizens currently have a passport, compared with 25 per cent just before the pandemic, with the weak yen and concerns over safety abroad cited by many as reasons to holiday domestically instead.
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According to a report issued by the foreign ministry on Thursday, 21.6 million Japanese held valid passports as of December, down sharply from a quarter of the population just five years earlier.
Atsushi Suzuki, a 34-year-old from Tokyo who works for an international NGO, is one of those who has yet to replace a passport that expired during the pandemic.
“Mine ran out a couple of years ago and I was just thinking that I really should renew it because I’m going to have to go abroad again for work sooner or later,” he told This Week in Asia.
Suzuki said, however, that he had no plans to holiday overseas.
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“I used to travel abroad when I was younger, but I guess the last time I went abroad for a holiday was to Thailand in 2012 when I was still a university student,” he said.