Asakusa sees sharp drop in foreign tourists

Visitors from overseas have all but disappeared from Tokyo's Asakusa district in the wake of the nuclear crisis following the March 11 quake and tsunami.

The downtown district of Asakusa is a major tourist attraction that draws around 30-million visitors every year, half of them foreigners.

But now, those visiting Sensoji Temple and the avenue of stalls leading up to the temple are mostly Japanese.

Individual travelers from the United States and Europe are starting to come back in the past several days. But the group tours from China and South Korea that used to crowd the site are nowhere to be seen.

The owner of a shop selling T-shirts and yukata cotton kimono say business is tough because up to 70 percent of customers have been foreigners. The owner said he wants the government to properly declare Tokyo's safety and allay fears of radiation leaks from the nuclear power plant.

The head of Asakusa's tourism promotion group Shigemi Fuji says that without foreign tourists, Asakusa looks like the old town it used to be.

He says foreigners will probably start coming back once they realize that Tokyo is safe, but he can only pray for the nuclear situation to be put under control.