Digital

International travel-tech conference ‘WiT Japan’ will be held face-to-face in Westin Tokyo on July 5 and 6 2023. Early-bird tickets will be available by May 12.

JTB has decided to invest to Tablecross, an operator of one-stop food platform ‘byFood.com' for international travelers to Japan, in order to promote gastronomy tourism.

TOKI AIR, a Nigata Airport-based startup regional airline, has developed ‘TOKI AIR NFT Project’ to launch a fan community ‘CLUB TOKI’ and to sell NFT arts.

Kenji Sunada, founder and CEO of KabuK Style talks about his ambition on fintech-based travel subscription services ‘HafH’ for accommodation and flight. He said, "We are committed to change the world with a new business model.”

Airbnb Japan signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with Kansai Tourism Bureau for home-sharing-based tourism promotions targeting international visitors for Osaka Kansai EXPO 2025.

JR West, a Japanese railway company in western Japan, has begun offering a share space booking and payment platform service ‘+ PLACE.' About 400 bookable places are available for the service in the beginning.

Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai will be a complete cashless event without accepting cash payment. its original e-money payment ‘EXPO 2025 Digital Wallet’ will be introduced by the end of March 2024.

Ethan Lin, Hong Kong-based local experience booking platform ‘Klook’ CEO and Co-founder, recently visited Japan to talk about the current market trend of inbound travel to Japan.

TrustYou revealed that Booking.com collected the most word-of-mouth postings with a share of 34% in Japan, followed by Google with 21%.

Veltra, a Japanese leading experience and tour booking platform, and Tiqets have agreed to extend the strategic partnership, including transition of business operation by Tiqets in Japan to Linktivity, a subsidiary of Veltra.

Kansai Tourism Bureau signed MOU on strategic partnership with Mastercard to accelerate digital payment in 10 prefectures in the Kansai area toward the Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai.

Japan Travel and Tourism Association opened a new tourism information website ‘JAPAN 47 GO’ containing about 110,000 local tourism attractions and experiences in 1,741 local regions nationwide.

ANA will integrate its domestic passenger service system into Amadeus Altea Passenger Service Systemto maximize seamless services for all passengers on a single platform. The integration will be in progress from FY2025 to FY2026.

Airbnb Japan donated 150 million jPY to Japan Kominka (old Japanese-style house) Association, enriching ‘Historical Homes' category in Japan. The Association plans to support up to 5 million JPY each for renovation of 30 houses nationwide.

Veltra and Asoview!, Japanese leading local experience booking platforms, signed a strategic business partnership to send customers reciprocally and support their business partners for DX.

HIS signed a business partnership with ‘MyAnimeList,’ one of the largest Japanese animation or manga community in the world to create and offer animation or manga-related travel tours in Web 3.0 space.

Hong Kong-based local experience booking platform ‘Klook' have begun selling ‘Klook Pass Tokyo & Tokyo Subway Ticket’ combining activities in Tokyo and one-day pass for 13 subway lines in Tokyo.

30% of all respondents in Japan knew what NFT is. Only 3.2% own NFT. The most popular category was ‘sports’ with 41.2%, followed by ‘animation or manga’ with 39.2% and ‘music or entertainment’ with 34%.

JTB has developed ‘JTB Data Connect HUB’ connecting property management system (PMS) for accommodation with a variety of business support solutions.

Tokyo Metro has begun selling a set of one-day passes on Amazon since November 29 2022 as its first year-around online ticket sales.