Travel Sectors

WiT Japan & North Aisa 2024 with a theme of ‘The Human Revolution’ on May 13 2024 particularly shared knowledge of how to use GenAI for travel.

14 UNIZO Holdings’ hotels in Japan will be renovated to Four Points Express by Sheraton. They will be the first Four Points Express by Sheraton brand in APAC.

85% of travel and hospitality business operators in Japan were forced to limit their operation hours due to labour shortage. The hospitality industry has struggled with their operations, such as reduce in operation days (51%).

JAL increased revenue by 20.1% year on year to 1652 billion yen for FY 2023 ended March 31 2024, 19.2% more than even FY2019, carrying 1.5 times more international flight passengers.

ANA Holdings considerably increased operating revenue for FY2023 ended March 31 2024 to 2,056 billion yen because of strong air travel demand after the pandemic. International passenger service revenue surpassed domestic passenger service revenue.

A stay in 400-years-old ‘Marugame Castle Experience’ in Kagawa Prefecture will be on sale at 1,265,000 JPY a night for two persons including one dinner and one breakfast.

ANA X, a ANA Group company, unveiled the TaaS (Travel as a Service) Platform concept for seamless travel on an smartphone app to expand an ANA economy zone by providing more opportunities to live or travel with accumulated miles.

Airbnb will contribute $1 million (about 153 million JPY) to a regional tourism exchange program between Japan and U.S, sending 15 to 20 tourism professionals from Japan to U.S.

ANA will begin serving complimentary in-flight internet access even to Business Class passengers on its international flights in this coming summer.

JTB, Asahi Breweries and Jidaiya, a rickshaw operator, worked together for a inbound travel program to tour cherry blossom spots in Asakusa by rickshaw. The program is to boost nighttime economy by inbound travelers.

JTB has estimated that the total number of Japanese travelers during this year’s Golden Week period (April 25 to May 5) will be up 1.8% to 23.3 million, including 520,000 outbound travelers, 67.7% more than a year ago.

Ministry of Justice of Japan has started issuing ‘digital nomad’ visa to a foreigner with annual income of 10 million JPY or more in about 50 visa waiver countries or regions

Japan Tourism Agency has selected 20 pioneer model areas and 51 general areas for prevention of over-tourism, such as ‘Niseko Model for usage of taxi’ in Kutchan, Hokkaido, ‘Equalization of crowd and ease of traffic jam’ in Hakone, Kanagawa.

JAL has launched ‘JAL Corporate SAF Program,’ which enables corporate users to visualize CO2 reduction based on JAL flights in terms of cargo transport or business trips.

Ikyu, a Japanese OTA for high-end accommodation, opened an overseas hotel booking platform in tie-ups with Expedia Rapid API.

HIS launched a new accommodation booking platform ‘WOW+,’ which lists unique properties only, giving users search opportunities from experience keywords.

Jeff Moomaw, Vice President Asia Pacific at Delta Air Lines, revealed that the airline will increase seat capacity in APAC by 35% in 2024. The airline continues investing to improvement of customer experiences.

Green Destinations Top 100 Story Awards selected Hakone Town, Kanagawa Prefecture, as top in Business & Marketing and Miyazu City, Kyoto Prefecture as 3rd in Culture & Tradition.

‘JTB BÓKUN,’ an activity booking management system,’ has completed API integration with ‘byFood.com' for inbound travelers to Japan, enabling food tour providers on byFood.com to make their operations more effective.

JTB Global Marketing & Travel has deveped two new tour routes of ‘Hokkaido AdveNature Route’ and ‘Northern Japan Discovery Route’ in Tohoku in SUNRISE TOURS for inbound travelers.