The impact on tourism from Japan’s tsunami and radiation scares continues to grow with airlines and cruise companies adjusting, or cancelling, their schedules.
Qantas’s offshoot, Jetstar, is cutting flights between Australia and Japan because of a fall in demand from Japanese travellers.
Jetstar will halve the number of services between Australia and Tokyo from today to seven a week,
About 80 per cent of the passengers on Jetstar flights between the two countries are Japanese.
Travel agents in Japan have reported cancellation rates of about 50 percent for bookings by Japanese tourists for trips to Australia since the earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
Princess Cruises is the latest line to cancel calls in Japan. The line says three ships scheduled to visit Japanese ports over the next three months will head elsewhere.
The change will impact seven departures of the 1,990-passenger Sun Princess, 2,670-passenger Diamond Princess and 680-passenger Ocean Princess in March, April and May, although the April 13 departure of the Ocean Princess, which includes a call in Okinawa, Japan’s most southern prefecture, will not be impacted.
Princess is following in the wake of Royal Caribbean, Oceania Cruises, Cunard and Azamara Club Cruises, all of which have cancelled calls in Japan in recent days.
