News

‘Prefecture ranking in tourism attractions,’ revealed as one of the domestic travel survey by Jalan Research Center, that the most-satisfied prefecture in 2023 was Kagoshima, followed by Ehime and Ishikawa.

ANA will begin serving Haneda-Milan, Stockholm and Istanbul after December 2024, expanding its Europe network to 49 flights a week to nine cities in eight countries.

The number of Japanese outbound travelers was down 38.8% to 930,200 in June 2024 compared to the same month 2019, worse than 34.5% down in May 2024.

The number of international visitors to Japan in June 2024 reached record-high 3,135,600 on a single month basis, increasing by 8.9% compared to the same month of 2019. The total for the first half of 2024 was up 6.9% to record-high 17,777,200.

The Japanese government focuses on sending inbound tourists to local areas and avoiding over-tourism, forecasting record-high 35 million international visitors and also record-high travel spending of 8 trillion yen in 2024.

According to The Teikoku Data Bank (TDB)’ survey, total revenue of hotels and ryokans in Japan in FY2023 ending March 31 2024 is expected to reach 4.9 trillion yen, almost the same revenue as FY2019.

Japan Tourism Agency(JTA) has begun bridging between schools or local governments and travel agents for overseas educational trips, expanding the overseas educational trip market.

Japan Brand Survey 2024 by Dentsu finds that Japan is the top revisiting destination by far, about 20 higher points than Singapore as the 2nd and U.S. as the 3rd. The most-expected experience in Japan is ‘a variety of foods’

HIS overseas travel bookings in this summer vacation period was 97.5% of the last year, but just 52.3% of the 2019 level. The most-booked destination was Seoul, followed by Taipei, Honolulu. Bangkok and Singapore.

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.

JTB has forecasted the number of Japanese travelers will decrease by 4.1% year on year to 69.8 million in total. Outbound travelers are expected to increase by 1.2% year on year to 1.75 million, around 65% of the pre-pandemic level.

The MICHELIN Guide announced the first 108 MICHELIN Key hotels and ryokan, six Three Key hotels and ryokans, 17 Two Key and 85 One Key, out of 243 MICHELIN Guide Hotel Selections (as of July 1 2024).

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.

According to Tokyo Shoko Research, the number of newly launched travel or accommodation businesses in 2023 increased by 59% year on year to 1,560, more than 1,500 for the first time in the past four years.

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.