At the regular press meeting on February 26, Hiroshi Mizohata, Commissioner of Japan Tourism Agency (JTA), spoke about a plan to slide the spring vacation period into several chunks of holidays according to the geographical division of the country. He is going to propose the plan on March 3 to the second meeting of the working team on vacation dispersal. JTA’s idea is to reallocate the three consecutive national holidays in May to some appropriate time of the season, region by region, and make five-day vacation by combining the weekend, without changing the total number of national holidays of the year.

Mizohata says, “It would be ideal if parents, like in Europe, could take paid leave in sync with their children’s dispersed summer vacation. In reality, however, Japanese workers’ acquisition of paid leave remains at somewhere above 40 percent of the days they are entitled to.” Since such low rate of acquisition is more evident in provincial areas or with small-sized enterprises, he argues that people will find it easy to take paid holidays on fixed dates once it is institutionalized as a universal practice and will consequently serve to disperse holiday peaks.

When it comes to the number of geographical zones and the time frame to be dispersed, he mentioned two plans, that is, five regions over five-week time frame and five regions over two-and-a-half-week time frame. “If we stretch the time frame to two- to three-month period, we come too close to summer vacation. Therefore, two full months of May and June would be the limit,” he said. Regarding the choice of holiday period applicable to each region, he presumes most of the regions would opt for the same period as that of Tokyo because Tokyo is the center of business. For this reason, he is of the opinion that the government should take the initiative in fixing the period and drawing territorial boundaries.

Mizohata unveiled a plan to make another vacation in autumn by moving national holidays which are called Happy Mondays; they are Coming-of-Age Day (January), Marine Day (July), Respect-for-Senior- Citizens Day (September), and Sports Day (October). In reply to a concern that such a string of holidays might give rise to travel congestion caused by concentrated demand, he said, “Nothing can be perfect. If the benefits are more than enough to offset minor drawbacks, we should set out for it. In my opinion, to take spring holidays in unison throughout the nation as we do now gives more harm than does good.”

He further remarked on the proposed dispersal of holidays, “We are aware that there are many different opinions on this issue among big and small businesses and among different lines of business. We are ready to listen to these opinions carefully. When it is confirmed that any specific measures are effective in leveling off the travel peaks, we would like to put them into practice carefully but decisively.” Thus, he takes a forward-looking stance on this issue.


(Note: This article translated from Japanese into English)