Japan Domestic Travel

According to a survey by Jalan Research Center of Recruit, 24.4% of all respondents performed day trips in the past year from September 2020 to August 2021. The ratio of 20s males particularly was as high as 41%.

JTB has forecasted that the number of domestic travelers in Japan will increase by 97% year on year to 260 million in 2022, but recent rise in prices may discourage people to travel.

JAL flight subscription service ‘A New Style of Travel' with accommodation subscription service ‘HafH' was used by 37 years old on average, and the majority was office worker with a share of 68%. 75% traveled to unexpected destinations.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced at a news conference on March 16 that the government will expand subsidies for domestic travel from within prefecture to a regional block on April 1 before nationwide ‘Go To Travel’ campaign is restarted.

The total number of Japanese guest nights in the calendar year of 2021 was down 0.2% year on year to 310.8 million, which were 35.3% fewer guests nights than 2019. The occupancy rate was 34.5% overall, 28.2 lower points than 2019.

Airbnb Japan signed a Workcation agreement with Cabinet Office Okinawa General Bureau to create connections between guests and hosts and local communities in Okinawa to increase relationship and co-education travelers.

ANA X, a ANA Group company, has started a trial for multi-habitation subscription service, which offers ‘living in a luxury hotel for a short period’ on a monthly or weekly base. 42 luxury hotels nationwide are available for the service.

Car-centered travel in Okinawa may discourage Generation Z and Millennium Generation to choose Okinawa as a leisure destination, as The Okinawa Development Finance Corporation survey shows 37.7% of them say ‘they do not hesitate to use rent-a-car.'

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) has launched ‘Second Hometown Project’ to exploit regular travelers to a particular countryside region, subsidizing up to 20 million JPY a project for local governments, DMOs or private business providers.

Visitors to Okinawa Prefecture is expected to reduce by 56% to 3.2 million in FY2021 ended March 31 2022 compared to FY2019, and the prefecture has forecasted to lose nominal GDP of 342.8 billion JPY.

According to NTTCom Research's survey, respondents in favor of restarting Go To Travel accounted for 53.5%, while 6.2% said that they are willing to travel even without it.

Okinawa Prefecture and Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau (OCVB) promote to sell Okinawa to Japanese overseas travel lovers as an alternative destination to overseas travel in four categories of ‘America,’ ‘Hawaii,’ ‘Asia’ and ‘Ryukyu.'

DMO KYOTO expects that the occupation rate of 103 hotels in Kyoto City will be recover to 65.5% in November this year, reaching the same level as the Go To Travel month last year.

The total number of guest nights in October 2021 was down 5.5% year on year to 32.6 million, considerably improving from 18.2% reduction in September 2021, and the occupancy rate also improved to 42.1%.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided a supplementary budget of 3.3 billion to subsidize 5,000 JPY a night or 2,500 JPY a day trip to a Tokyo resident who travel in Tokyo.

Jalan research finds the most-imaginable prefecture as an onsen resort is Oita with high popularity to Beppu and Yufuin, followed by Gunma with Kusatsu.

JR East, a Japanese railway company, and Satoyume, a local revitalization business start-up, launched a special-purpose company for ‘Hotels along the line’ project.

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has launched the ‘Pokémon GO’ program in Odawara City to help visitors discover local history by virtually placing poke stops on the game.

Airbnb Japan signed a partnership agreement with Iida City and local DMO South Shinshu Tourism in Nagano Prefecture to explore farm stay in south Nagano area for local revitalization.

57.6% of surveyed companies hope that domestic travel boosting ‘Go To Travel’ program will be restarted within FY2021, and the ratio was 76% among lodging, dining and entertainment service industries.