Japan is barring all foreign visitors to the country for the Olympics because of COVID-19.
It is April Fool’s Day but the business that is in charge of selling tickets to Americans for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics is telling their buyers. This is no April Fool’s joke. You are not getting back the 20 percent handling fee on those tickets that you bought because Japan won’t let you in the country. Blame the COVID-19 pandemic. CoSport is an authorized ticket reseller of the Tokyo event and the United States has been designated as part of the CoSport’s sales territory which gives the company the exclusive access to sell Olympic tickets to Americans. CoSport charges a handling fee on the tickets and warned Japan’s government officials that if Japan barred tourists from entering the country for the Olympics, it was not going to give Olympics’ ticket buyers from American back the handling fee. The International Olympic Committee plans to give refunds to all ticket buyers from countries other than Japan.
Japan is hoping to avoid a spread of the COVID-19 illness. Japan in March released the no tourists allowed statement, “during the meeting, the IOC and the IPC were informed about the conclusion of the Japanese parties not to allow entry into Japan for overseas spectators for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 due to the prevailing worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.” COVID-19 has not gone away but Japan will allow just Olympic athletes and staff to enter Japan. “Currently, the COVID-19 situation in Japan and many other countries around the world is still very challenging and a number of variant strains have emerged, while international travel remains severely restricted globally.” There may be a problem getting refunds on flights and hotel rooms for people who planned to go to the Tokyo event. This is not an April Fool’s joke.
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