The Japanese holiday trend survey, conducted by Japan Travel and Tourism Association, finds that the ratio of Japanese taking a week or more holidays in a row almost doubled to 39.4% in 2014 from 18.6% in 2013 or 17.7% in 2012. The ratios of Japanese spending holidays for overnight travel in Japan and daytrip in Japan slightly reduced to 47.1% and 12.7% respectively, while the ratio of Japanese spending holidays for overseas travel increased by about 10 points year-on-year to 39.1% in 2014.
For overnight travel in Japan, the average nights were 3.3, and the ratio of two or three nights accounted for 46.5% of the total. The most popular destination in Japan was Kanto (23.3%), followed by Chubu (17.3%) and Hokkaido (16.6%). Kanto was the most popular destination among 20 years old or younger travelers (43.5%), and Hokkaido was the top among 60 years old or older travelers.
The highest use of transportation was railway (44.5%), followed by private car (41.7%) and airplane (40.7%). A variety of airfares offered by LCCs mainly helped the airplane users increase from 26.8% in the previous year, according to the Association.
The ratio of direct accommodation bookings online accounted for 42.9% of the total, and the ratio of direct bookings for air or railway tickets online or through call centers accounted fro 25.4%. It is outstanding that both of the shares were 5 to 12% higher than a year earlier. On the contrary, the ratio of bookings on travel agents’ websites or through their call centers was 19.9%, and the ratio of bookings at retailers was 13.7%. These were 3 to 8% lower results than a year earlier.
