Digital

Hopper Technology Solutions (HTS), a BtoB solution provider of OTA Hopper, and Sumitomo Mitsui Card signed a strategic business partnership, providing HTS original OTA solution to Sumitomo for the first time in Japan.

Haneda Airport has launched ‘Haneda Airport Duty-free Booking Station,’ which is a new service for Chinese travelers to book duty-free items on a WeChat mini program.

Digital money ‘MYAKU-PE!, ‘ loyalty point service ‘MYAKU-PO!’ and the original NFT ‘MYAKU-N!’ have been launched as new digital functions of ‘EXPO 2025 Digital Wallet.’

Kyoto City encourages inbound travelers visiting Kyoto City to use ‘Oyraa,’ an interpretation app, to avoid troubles in traveling in advance and as one of the over-tourism countermeasures.

JR Hotel Group announced that LINE, the biggest communication app in Japan, became an option as ‘JR Hotel Members(JRHM)’ pass.

NAVITIME JAPAN, a Japanese navigation app provider, announced regions with more inbound travelers’ visits in the spring 2024, based on data from ‘Japan Travel by NAVITIME.’ The largest growth was seen in Minami Ashigara City.

E-ticket booking platform Linktivity has begun selling QR code-based digital tickets of private railways in Kansai and Kanto areas through partnerships with more than 400 OTAs worldwide.

Hong Kong-based experience booking platform Klook has begun selling ‘Klook eSIM' for 60 countries, which can be activated in its app after purchasing without scanning QR code.

Location data of climbers to Mt.Fuji is be collected for safe climbing in accordance with a new climbing regulation on the Yoshida Route in Yamanashi Prefecture on July 1 2024.

[PR] The 9th ‘Digital Travel APAC 2024,’ an annual travel-tech summit for APAC, will be organized by Worldwide Business Research (WBR) in Singapore for two days from August 14 2024, joined by more than 200 professionals from the travel industry.

JAL has launched its original platform to match human resources in urban areas with challenges in local areas. The platform helps users search areas, contents, term or budget meeting their own needs.

JTB has completed a system linkage between ‘JTB BÓKUN,’ a BtoB activity booking management system, and ‘KEY STATION,’ a remote key delivery system.

NTT Broadband Platform (NTTBP) has begun providing ‘Japan Wi-Fi Funalytics,’ a new service to visualize and analyze inbound travelers’ movements with data from free Wi-Fi access app.

Tripla, a Japan’s IT solution provider for accommodations, launched ‘Tripla Link,’ a booking management system linking with 28 OTAs in Asia, including Lion Travel and ez Travel of Taiwan or Traveloka of Indonesia.

The latest Euromonitor International survey finds that online sales of travel-related products in Japan amounted to record-high 4.7 trillion yen, surpassing 4.5 trillion yen in 2019.

Eight railway companies in Tokyo Metropolitan area will transfer the current magnetic ticket to QR-code ticket on the companies-cross system step by step after 2026.

International Tourism Trade Show 2024 was held in Tokyo Big Sight for three days from May 8th to 10th as a new BtoB tourism event, organizing the 2nd International Wellness Tourism EXPO and the first Tourism Marketing EXPO.

WiT Japan & North Aisa 2024 with a theme of ‘The Human Revolution’ on May 13 2024 particularly shared knowledge of how to use GenAI for travel.

Yamanashi Prefecture will introduce a pre-booking program to collect admission fees from climbers to Mt.Fuji on July 1 2024. The prefecture placed a gate in the Mt. Fuji fifth entrance station to collect admission fees this year.

Trip.com received more travel bookings from mainland China to Japan in the first quarter of 2024 than the same period of 2019, and bookings in local areas of Japan have increased.