Japan Recants Offer for 10,000 Free Flights

The government of Japan has canceled its funding for an initiative offering 10,000 free flights to the country in 2012. The plan was designed to boost consumer confidence after the 2011 tsunami, but now the program remains on the back burner.

"We realize this announcement is going to disappoint thousands of people around the world, but we hope people will understand how insensitive it would appear for the Japanese government to give people free flights to Japan when the cities, towns and villages devastated by the tsunami are still in desperate need of funding for reconstruction," Kylie Clark, head of public relations and marketing, Japan National Tourism Organization, tells Breaking Travel News.

The JNTO hopes that this will not hinder travel to Japan, seeing as the most popular tourist destinations like Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakone, Osaka, Hiroshima, Sapporo and Okinawa, remain unaffected.

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