Tourists a rare but welcome sight in quake-hit Japan

Foreign tourists remain a rare sight more than a month after Japan suffered the most powerful earthquake in its history, as the nation grapples with power cuts and radiation leaks from a nuclear power plant.

April should be peak tourist season for Tokyo, famous for the brief but spectacular blossoming of its cherry trees, which signals the start of spring.

But in Asakusa, one of the capital’s oldest districts and home to the Senso-ji temple, a major tourist draw, there are no foreign faces to be seen.

“Before the earthquake, Asakusa was quite touristy and very well-known to foreigners,” rickshaw driver Yoshiaki Suzuki said.

“But since the quake, and the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, you no longer see them.”

Japan suffered its largest ever decline in foreign visitors last month in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami, which left around 28,000 people dead or missing and tens of thousands more homeless.

Foreign governments urged their citizens to stay away, some even chartering planes to fly people out of Tokyo as the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant threatened to spiral out of control.

Around 560,000 hotel reservations have been cancelled nationwide, according to government figures, which do not include the worst-hit Iwate and Chiba prefectures.But as travel warnings issued in the chaotic days that followed the March 11 disaster are eased, many people in Japan say they hope the tourists will soon return as a show of support for the disaster-stricken country.

“Foreigners think it is dangerous here, with the earthquake and the nuclear accident. Japan is safe. Tokyo is safe,” said Uko Komatsuzaki, head of public relations for Tokyo’s renowned Imperial Hotel.