The Japan Tourism Agency's travel support, sloppy management was discovered in the accounting audit-At that time, the head of the agency in charge expressed indignation at the fraudulent travel agency
On January 29, 2025, the Board of Audit announced the results of an inspection of the Japan Tourism Agency's budget execution for two travel support projects that support the tourism industry affected by the new coronavirus. As a result of the inspection, several problems were pointed out, such as an unused budget of 128.5 billion yen, waste due to the disposal of paper coupons, and opaque operation due to the lack of preservation of important materials and inadequate management by prefectural governments.
The travel support projects subject to inspection by the Board of Audit are "Prefectural Discount Support" (April 2021 ~ October 2022) and "National Travel Support" (October 2022 ~ May 2023). A total of 1,119.3 billion yen was budgeted for these projects, but the actual amount of expenditure was only 990.7 billion yen, and 128.5 billion yen was unused.
In particular, a total of 72.4 billion yen was not executed in 40 prefectures nationwide for the "group travel quota" set up to promote the use of chartered buses. One of the reasons for this is that the Japan Tourism Agency has set the quota based on statistics that include not only charter buses but also railways and aircraft. In addition, the Japan Tourism Agency did not sufficiently inform prefectural governments of the special provision that allows transfers from the group travel quota to the general travel quota.
In addition, it was found that the Japan Tourism Agency did not keep the data on the maximum amount of subsidies to be issued to prefectural governments and the calculation standards, and that the Board of Audit was unable to verify the appropriateness of budget execution.
Confusion in the introduction of electronic coupons, disposal of 32.69 million paper coupons
In the middle of implementing the nationwide travel support, the Japan Tourism Agency shifted from paper coupons to electronic coupons. As a result of this change, approximately 32.69 million paper coupons that had already been printed were discarded.
Since the introduction of e-coupons was a sudden decision, it was not communicated to travelers and businesses in time, and it has been reported that it caused confusion in some areas.
When asked about the possibility of fraudulent use of paper coupons, the Board of Audit explained, "The occurrence of fraud is unthinkable because the use of paper coupons is no longer possible at the same time as the transition to electronic coupons."
Lack of management of vaccination certificates and coupon usage history was also discovered
In some prefectures, it was also found that travelers' residency verification, vaccination certificates, and record keeping of used coupons were insufficient. This made it difficult for the Board of Audit to verify the appropriateness of the business.
Supervisory responsibility of the Japan Tourism Agency—"Budget management is left to prefectural governments"
Reports and expense statements for national travel support are submitted to the Japan Tourism Agency by prefectural governments toward the end of FY2023 (March 2024). In December 2023, when the editorial department interviewed the Tourism Industry Division of the Japan Tourism Agency, which is in charge of national travel support, about the system for checking prefectural reports, they replied, "Since (national travel support) is a prefectural initiative, the Japan Tourism Agency accepts the report and only (reads) the budget."
At the same time, Mr. Iku Shoji, the manager of the Tourism Industry Division of the Japan Tourism Agency, Interviews "I feel resentful of the repeated injustice (of travel agencies)," he said. In addition, he strongly criticized the use of public funds as an act of betrayal of the people.
観光庁の役割と責任の変化—管理体制の弱体化
In the 2020 GoTo Travel project, the Japan Tourism Agency served as the secretariat together with the Tourism Industry Joint Proposal Organization, and operated it in a way that involved travelers and travel operators. During the Corona disaster, the Japan Tourism Agency has become difficult to carry out its business smoothly due to an increase in the workload of its staff and the discovery of fraudulent problems such as the HIS Group, and the prefectural government has changed from the prefectural discount support in 2021 to a form in which the prefectural government is the main operator. This change further diluted the management awareness of the Japan Tourism Agency staff, and it seems that the lack of transparency and supervision in budget execution has caused problems like this one.
