Japanese Travelers

JTB Tourism Research & Consulting's survey shows that Japanese who experienced overseas travelers in 2019 traveled in Japan in 2020 more frequently than those who experienced domestic travel only in 2019.

Relationship travelers, who visit particular local community for a particular purpose, is estimated at 18.27 million, about 20% of all 106 million 18 years old or older residents nationwide, which consist of 8.61 million (18.4% of all residents) in three major urban areas and 9.66 million (16.3% of all residents) in other local areas.

Telecom Square has released a new free service to issue location certificate on its AR navigation app to meet requirement for travelers entering into Japan to save location information on selected map app for 14 days.

Domestic travel consumption by Japanese travelers was down 46.5% year on year to 2,694 billion JPY in the fourth quarter of 2020 (October to December 2020), and the yearly total accordingly decreased by 54.9% to 9,898 billion JPY. Travel expenditure was down 9.2% to 33,925 JPY a traveler a trip in 2020.

JTB Tourism Research & Consulting's survey shows that keys to choose accommodation is ‘thorough hygiene,' ‘dining a private room,' and ‘chartered bath,' all of which are to avoid close contact with others like staying home.

JTB Tourism Research & Consulting Survey notably illustrates that Japanese female seniors were more willing to travel in the last three months of 2020 than before, although those people had been negative about traveling since COVID-19 broke out.

Klook survey finds that the ratio of people who are unsatisfied with not traveling overseas currently was 36% in Japan, which was lower than 55% on average in APAC.

The total number of Japanese guest nights was down 24.4% year on year to 28.7 million, dropping from a 16.1% reduction in November 2020 obviously because the Japanese domestic travel recovery program ‘Go To Travel’ has been suspended nationwide.

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo announced launch of a new service apartment business, for which 99 rooms on the third floor have been renovated, expecting to meet new needs, such as the second working space for corporate executives, business continuity plan (BCP) or the second house for a wealthy class.

DMO KYOTO has developed ‘Visit Intent Index’ to measure tourists’ intents to visit Kyoto in a quantitative way. In December 2020, both of actual visitors and the visit intent index dropped to 60.7 and 67.1 because ‘Go To Travel’ program was tentatively suspended amid re-spread of COVID-19.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers was down 84.2% year on year to 3,174,200 in 2020, including 33,000 in December 2020 only.

Japan Railway East will operate a special remote-work train car on the Tohoku Shinkansen line for business travelers, looking for a new business opportunity under new normal lifestyle.

Japanese guest nights in 66 hotels were up 42.8% year on year in November 2020, which was the largest YOY growth since the survey began.The average occupancy rate was 63.2%, 22.2 points higher than October (41.0%), improving for seven months in a row.

The total number of Japanese guest nights was down 15.7% to 34.2 million in November 2020, improving from a 35.2% reduction in October 2020 clearly because of ‘Go To Travel,' and international guest nights increased from 270,000 in October 2020 to 440,000 due to the limited ease of the entry rules.

45% of Japanese respondents are interested in vacation rental as on option of accommodations, selecting ‘condominium or apartment' as the top, although the awareness rate is still low at 19%, according to Expedia survey.

Japan will suspend new entries from all of foreign countries and regions until January 31 2021 to avoid possible inclusion of new variants of COVID-19, and the 14-days quarantine exemption for short-term business travelers will also be suspended.

JTB Tourism Research & Consulting has calculated losses of 9.6 million travelers and 318.7 billion JPY in travel consumption due to the tentative suspension. Japanese domestic travelers during 2020-2021 New Year holiday period is expected to reduce by 73% to 7.9 million from 29.3 million a year ago.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers was down 98.1% year on year to 30,700 in November 2020.No large increase was seen in November, despite ease of quarantine for Japanese business travelers after returning to Japan and start of pre-test program for Japanese travelers in Hawaii.

Japanese guest nights in Kyoto City in October 2020 were up 2.2% year on year, the first monthly growth in the past 13 months since September 2019, and the average occupancy rate was also up 8.2 point to 41.0% compared to September, marking the first 40% or higher since Declaration of the State of Emergency.

The JTB survey on travel trend in this coming New Year holidays results find that the ratio of ‘traveling including homecoming’ accounted for 14.8% including ‘probably traveling (6.9%),’ which was 5.2 lower points than a year ago.