Plummeted Below 2 Trillion Then Recovered
After four years since the spread of COVID-19 in Japan in 2020, cherry blossom viewing (Hanami) has resumed, and it is expected that the economic effect related to this field will recover to around 6 trillion won. Since COVID-19, the economic scale related to cherry blossom viewing in Japan had fallen below 2 trillion won and had not easily recovered, but thanks to the lifting of the mask-wearing mandate and other factors, sales this year are expected to be more than three times higher than the previous year.
According to Japan's Kyodo News on the 24th, the Japan Meteorological Agency announced that cherry blossoms in Tokyo reached full bloom on the 22nd, and currently, cherry blossoms are in full bloom throughout Japan. This year, cherry blossoms bloomed on average 9 days earlier than usual, marking the second earliest full bloom since March 21, 2002.
In 2013, 2020, and 2021, cherry blossoms also reached full bloom on March 22, similar to this year. The Japan Meteorological Agency uses the date when more than 80% of the buds on the sample cherry tree at Yasukuni Shrine have opened as the standard for full bloom in Tokyo.
With this early blooming causing a surge in flower viewing tourists, the economic effect of cherry blossom viewing this year is expected to be more than three times larger than usual. Professor Emeritus Kanzo Miyamoto of Kansai University predicted to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) that "the economic effect of cherry blossom viewing this year will reach 615.8 billion yen (approximately 6.0852 trillion won)."
This is more than three times the 201.6 billion yen recorded last year. The economic effect of cherry blossom viewing in Japan, which was 398.2 billion yen in 2020 when COVID-19 began, sharply dropped to 158.2 billion yen in 2021, falling far short of the pre-COVID-19 level of 650 billion yen.
This year, with the resumption of cherry blossom viewing after four years, many tourists have already started participating in Hanami. According to a survey conducted earlier by Weathernews, the percentage of people who said they would go cherry blossom viewing dropped to 20% in 2021 but increased to 53% this year. The budget for cherry blossom viewing per person also rose by more than 80% compared to last year, reaching about 6,900 yen.
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