Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) reported that travel sales of 49 major Japanese travel companies in May 2015 increased by 3.5% year on year to 542.1 billion JPY in total. While sales for outbound travel reduced by 9.2% to 155.3 billion JPY, sales for inbound travel remarkably increased by 45.4% to 15.1 billion JPY. Sales for travel in Japan were up 8.6% to 371.8 billion JPY.

In terms of overseas travel sales, only H.I.S. resulted in year-on-year growth (+1.5%) among the top five companies (JTB, H.I.S., Hankyu, KNT-CT and NTA). The following table shows overseas travel sales of top five companies in the last 12 months:

In terms of inbound travel sales, the top was JTB, followed by NTA. Resulting in remarkable year-on-year growth (+98%), H.I.S. approached the 2nd NTA. KNT-CT ranked 4th, followed by Tobu Top Tours and Rakuten. The following table shows inbound travel sales of top six companies in the last 12 months;

In terms of travel in Japan sales, the top four companies (JTB, Rakuten, KNT-CT and NTA) resulted in year-on-year growths. Although ANA Sales slightly reduced sales by 0.3%, it raised its ranking from 6th in April to 5th in May. Hankyu resulted in decrease of 4.7%. The following table shows travel in Japan sales of top six companies in the last 12 months;

Sales of package brand products totaled 132.2 billion JPY in May 2015, which consisted of 49.1 billion JPY for outbound travel (-9.3%), 82.5 billion JPY for travel in Japan (+9.1%) and 600 million JPY for inbound travel (+43.9%).

Customers of package brand products reached 3,016,899 in total (+0.6%), which comprised 225,871 customers for outbound travel (-9.6%), 2,755,092 customers for travel in Japan (+1.1%) and 35,936 customers for inbound travel (+62.4%). The growth rate of inbound travel customers was higher than that of sales.

Increase in travelers from East Asia and Southeast Asia in the inbound travel market was still boosted by ease of the visa rules. In the travel in Japan market, Kansai and Hokuriku were preferred. The outbound travel market was negatively influenced by downturn in demand for Europe.