Travel Sectors

Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) announced guidelines for travel companies to restart performing overseas travel tours, including criteria to suspend a tour and to collect cancellation fee.

ANA Holdings ended FY2021 ending March 31 2022 with much better business results than a year ago, increasing sales and improving deficits, as a result of more thorough cost management to reduce fixed costs.

Restarting to sell package tours to Hawaii since early April this year, major travel companies of Japan have increased overseas travel bookings for this coming summer, which seems to give consumers a message of ‘reopening of overseas travel.'

ANA X and ANA Business Jet, ANA Group companies, have joined ‘Travel concierge services for luxury travelers’ program to launch ‘nfinity,’ a travel concierge brand, which is engaged in development of unique and rich experiences.

ANA and JAL have remarkably increased their international flight bookings for this coming Golden Week. JAL Hawaii flights have already been full on several days during the period.

ZIP AIR Tokyo, JAL Group LCC, will serve daily flights between Narita and Honolulu during this year’s summer vacation period to meet expected higher demand.

JTB has decided to restart sending LOOK JTB MyStyle tours to Hawaii on April 28, followed by HIS on May 1, as Japanese government lowered the COVID-19-related travel warning from Level 3 to Level 2 for U.S.

The Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI) Tourism Committee compiled requests for tourism recovery in Japan, including effective operation of ‘Go To Travel’ and extension of the program.

Tourism Australia (TA) has started developing a large scale of advertising campaign in Japan to appeal tourism attractions to be selected as the next leisure destination in accordance with ease of travel restrictions into Japan.

Sales of 1110 travel companies in Japan reduced by 71.2% to 724.2 billion JPY in total in 2021 from 2,519.7 billion JPY in 2020. Compared to 2019, the total shrank to one-third of 2,771 billion JPY.

Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) sent an inspection delegation to Hawaii on April 3, positioning it as the first step for reopening of outbound travel from Japan. Hiroyuki Takahashi, JATA Chairman, said "JATA member companies will begin producing and selling products for Hawaii this summer.”

HIS has decided to sell out its 100% subsidiary HTB Energy with excess of debt, posting a deficit of about 10 billion JPY for FY2021.

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.

JAL will raise domestic flight airfares by 3% to 8% and also upgrade fares on a flight day for a year from April 15 2022 due to rise in fuel cost mainly.

Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) will send its first delegation to Hawaii on April 3 2022 to restart overseas tours and develop the national momentum toward overseas travel.

Nippon Travel Agency (NTA) will hold SDGs-themed metaverse event ‘GO!SDGs’ on March 25 2022 in cooperation with GAIA LINK. Applicants can freely move as avatars in the virtual space.

ANA Holdings unveiled its new middle-range international airline ‘Air Japan’ as a hybrid airline between full service carrier and low cost carrier, aiming to begin its Narita-based services on the Asia and Oceania network in the latter half o FY2023.

JGC Holdings Corporation, REVO International, ANA and JAL, as leader companies, launched ‘ACT FOR SKY,’ a corporate group to aim to commercialize Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) in Japan to establish a domestic supply chain for SAF from material purchase and manufacture to supply.

ANA has shifted the Europe flight route over Russia to a route over central Asia since March 4 for a safety reason, extending flight hours to 15 hours and 30 minutes from Narita to Brussels.

Travel Management Club, one of the travel industry groups in Japan, will perform a 5-days/3-nights study tour to Finland in March 2022 to verify challenges for restarting overseas travel.