Journal
JOURNAL OF TRANSPORT & HEALTH
Volume 26, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jth.2022.101407
Keywords
COVID-19; Tourism promotion; Subsidy; Travel restriction; Japan; Difference in differences
Funding
- JSPS KAKENHI [22K01526]
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This study measures the impact of the Go To Travel campaign on COVID-19 cases and finds that it significantly increased the number of cases during a specific period but did not have a continuous effect on the overall trend.
Introduction: On July 22, 2020, the Japanese government launched the Go to Travel campaign that subsidizes 50% of personal travel expenditure to support the tourism industry under the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy was controversial from the viewpoint of infection spread and was temporarily cancelled in December 2020, though there was no statistical evidence. Methods: This is the first study that measures the extent to which this campaign increased COVID19 cases. This study regards the campaign as a natural experiment: although Tokyo and its commuting areas experienced the same time-series trends of COVID-19 cases before the Go To Travel campaign, this campaign was implemented in areas outside Tokyo, but not in Tokyo. Then, the comparison (difference-in-differences) yields the campaign's effect. Results: The estimation shows that the Go To Travel campaign significantly raised the increment rate of cases by 23.7%-34.4% during July 30-August 4. There is no significant effect after August 5. In addition, our simulation identified the number of campaign-related cases in each city. Conclusions: Although the campaign significantly spread COVID-19, the effect was not continuous to permanently change the time-series trend.
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