The Ifo institute predicted on Friday that overseas visitors to Germany, the host nation for Euro 2024, would enhance the country’s economy by 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion).

According to Germany’s leading economic research institute, the accommodation and food retail sectors stand to gain the most from the games. This equates to approximately 0.1% of the country’s economic production in the second quarter of the year.

“However, the effect is only short-lived, so that exports of services due to returning tourists are likely to fall again after the end of the European Championship in the third quarter and remain the same on balance,” Gerome Wolf, an Ifo researcher, stated.

The institute estimated that during the championship, more than 600,000 foreign visitors and 1.5 million additional overnight stays are anticipated, based on data from the FIFA World Cup that Germany hosted in 2006.

In addition, the German Economy Ministry anticipates a brief rebound in consumer-facing industries following extremely low retail sales this year—though not to the same degree as during the World Cup in 2006.

Experts concur that the German national team’s performance in the competition will also have an impact on the Euro 2024’s overall impact on the greatest economy in Europe.

On Friday evening, the competition will begin with their matchup versus Scotland.

One dollar is equal to 0.9333 euros.

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Up steep steps, down a brightly signposted street in Tokyo, and behind a windowless door sits a “snack bar” that locals have long loved but has been closed to visitors—until recently. Snack bars are warm, nostalgic places that can be found all over Japan. They are frequently jam-packed into tiny spaces and have karaoke machines that reverberate long into the night. Usually, a lady known by the moniker “mama” runs them and engages in small talk with patrons while serving drinks and little bites like dried squid, almonds, or modest cooked meals.

Though the little, hidden pubs have been a mainstay of Japanese nightlife since the post-war era, their narrow layout can be daunting, particularly to foreign visitors. A company, thus, provides guided excursions to snack bars in the capital’s Shimbashi business sector, such as Kuriyakko. A family of Americans is heard singing “Hey Jude” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads” while a poster depicting art deco is warmly illuminated by soft lights that bounce off the red wall tiles inside.

After viewing the trip on Instagram, Nora, who had lived in Japan, told AFP that she made reservations for her parents, sister, aunt, and uncle. “I’ve always seen the signs for snack bars, but I wasn’t sure of how to enter them, or what to do,” the 30-year-old stated. She did not want her last name to be made public and is currently based in San Francisco. “My family hasn’t really been in Japan very often, so it was a good opportunity to get a real experience of the bar culture” in a “jovial” yet “intimate” manner. A tour guide from Snack Yokocho shows the party how to say “cheers” in Japanese, “kanpai!” and how to order whiskey highballs and plum wine.

Roots of red light
“Mama” Kuri Awaji, who has been running Kuriyakko for 25 years, stands behind the bar wearing a sophisticated pastel kimono and wearing her hair up in a traditional manner. This snack bar is one of about 100,000 in Japan, according to Snack Yokocho, and some have a male “master” despite the majority being owned by women. With an emphasis on convivial discussion, the ambiance at snack bars is less sexually charged than at contemporary host and hostess clubs, although its origins may be traced back to Japan’s red-light districts.

According to Snack Yokocho spokesperson Mayuko Igarashi, several women turned to sex work after World War II in order to live, but anti-prostitution legislation were established around the time of the 1964 Olympics. They thus “took a simple wooden box to the regular street and served drinks and snacks” in order to generate income. These early snack restaurants gradually relocated indoors to smaller spaces that the women could run without needing to make elaborate food.

As per Igarashi, a lot of them were divorced and parenting their kids by themselves, which is why they were called “mama”. “It was difficult for them to work during the day when the children were around, so after they went to bed, women stood at the counter to work in the evening,” she continued.

In person
According to Igarashi, there were 200,000 snack bars in Japan in the 1950s and 60s, but as the “mama” retire or sell up, the number has decreased. Snack Yokocho reports that interest in their excursions is rising as a result of the record number of visitors to Japan. In addition to well-known locations like Kuriyakko, the company’s tour guides take guests to snack bars with unique themes, like a golf bar featuring an artificial putting green.

It also occasionally arranges excursions for Japanese ladies who are interested in learning about the culture of snack bars but are hesitant to knock on a closed door by themselves. Igarashi claimed that practically all of the patrons of the bars were guys for a long time. However, snack bars have evolved a “place for them to relax, or talk to ‘mama’ about their problems”.

Social media is where people chat a lot, but nothing matches in-person conversation after a difficult day, the speaker continued. “At a snack bar, people can look into each others’ eyes, and get to know each other very quickly — even strangers.”

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As the financial hub looks to strengthen relations with mainland China, a new high-speed sleeper train service is expected to slash travel times between Hong Kong and Beijing and Shanghai by around half.

According to a statement from MTR Corp., the services, which begin on June 15 and operate Friday through Monday, will cut the average travel time between Beijing and Hong Kong from over a full day to 12.5 hours. Shanghai travel times will now just take 11 hours instead of 19.5, as announced by Hong Kong’s mass railway operator.

Travelers can spend as little as HK$937 ($120) to visit Beijing; a trip to Shanghai starts at HK$682 ($87), and sleepers are more expensive. This is in contrast to roughly $100 for a 3.5-hour journey in mid-June from Hong Kong to the capital of China and as little as $78 for a flight that takes less than three hours to go to Shanghai.

In addition to taking longer, the overnight train services will only operate once daily, while there will be at least twelve flights between Hong Kong and the two mainland cities during the weekend. On the route that is well-liked by both tourists and business travelers, long-haul daytime train services that last almost eight hours will still operate.

According to MTR, customers may now “maximize their travel time and conveniently plan their business or leisure itineraries” thanks to the introduction of sleeping trains. On June 5, tickets for the new service will go on sale.

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