Tokyo Organizing Committee Bans Overseas Spectators

Sign displaying Tokyo’s Sept. 7, 2013 selection as the site for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which have been postponed to 2021 and downscaled considerably as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (Flickr).

The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games announced on March 20 that overseas spectators would be banned from attending this summer’s Olympics. A far cry from what was once billed as a celebration of humanity’s triumph over COVID-19, the Tokyo 2021 Olympic games will be the first to not include international visitors.

Seiko Hashimoto, who has been President of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee since February 2021, described the decision as “unavoidable.” The games had already been postponed, roughly a year ago on March 24, 2020, from their initial dates of July 24 to August 9, 2020, to the summer of this year in hopes that the pandemic would have subsided. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach had previously stated that there would be no “plan B” and that “the games will either be held [in 2020] or canceled altogether, which means the next Olympics will be held in Paris in 2024.”

The decision resulted in more difficulties: originally, the Tokyo Organizing Committee had planned to sell 630,000 tickets for overseas fans for both the Olympics and Paralympics but now plans to refund 600,000 Olympics tickets, alongside 300,000 Paralympics tickets. However, Toshiro Muto, the director of the committee, said that the costs of hotel cancellations would not be covered. Nevertheless, the ban is expected to only exacerbate the costs of hosting the games, which had ballooned to ¥1.64 trillion ($15.4 billion) due to the postponement and the COVID-19 safety measures. The almost-complete elimination of revenue from tourism comes as an additional financial burden on Japan, which has seen a 99.9 percent drop in its number of annual tourists since the onset of the pandemic.

Further, the committee has been left with debating how to handle the issue of overseas workers and volunteers: 10 percent or so of the roughly 80,000 volunteers were foreign nationals, as reported by organizers before they decided to postpone the games last year. The government will also consider ways to allow for the entry of international workers whose jobs are difficult to replace with Japanese workers, such as translators for less commonly spoken languages.

In a statement, the IOC and International Paralympic Committee voiced their disappointment in the ban, but said they "fully respected and accepted" the decision.

The U.S. Olympic team called the decision "news we hoped would never come,” adding in a statement that it would "continue to advocate for opportunities for American fans to experience the games in person."

The move, however, reflects the general sentiments of the country towards hosting the Olympics this year: according to a recent national poll conducted by NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation), only 16 percent believe that it is a good idea, and more than 80 percent of respondents expressed their desire to see the games postponed again or even cancelled.