Travel Sectors

JAL has changed boarding orders and usage of the boarding bridges for wide-body aircraft of domestic flights to enable passengers to board more smoothly, based on the results from a joint research with Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Japan National Tourism Organization JNTO) has decided to host ‘Adventure Week’ in Tohoku area in the autumn of 2025 in partnership with Adventure Travel Trade Association(ATTA).

Travel Bureau Foundation (JTBF) organized ‘Tourism Resources Seminar’ particularly focusing on accommodation tax to give hints to local tourism organizations, introducing the accommodation tax with the fixed rate of 2% in Kuchan, Hokkaido as a case study.

Hotel Management International (HMI) and IHG Hotels & Resorts has reached a strategic partnership agreement, on which Three ‘Crown Palais’ hotels in Koichi City, Chiryu City and Hamamatsu City will be renovated and rebranded to ‘ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel.’

Japan Tourism Agency has requested a budget of 62.8 billion yen in total for FY2025, budgeting accommodation business revitalization and building of build a new duty-free shop model in local areas as new projects.

HIS, a Japan’s leading travel firm, and Atami City, a popular onsen destination, signed an agreement on inbound travel promotion. The first effort is that HIS Taiwan will send its local staff to Atami.

Nissan Motor, Nippon Travel Agency (NTA), as founders, and other 12 Japanese companies launched ‘Green Journey Promotion Board.' The first ‘Green Journey’ tours are organized in Aso City, Kumamoto Prefecture and Shima City, Mie Prefecture.

Sales of 43 major travel companies in June 2024 were up 2.7% year on year to 291.7 billion JPY, but the monthly result was down 26.6% compared to the same month of 2019. Sales in overseas travel were still down 37.3% compared to June 2019.

According to the latest Booking.com survey on LGBTA+ travel in 27 countries and regions including Japan, 44% of Japanese LGBTQ+ travelers booked travel to a LGBTQ+-friendly destination in the last 12 months.

JAL has started offering original programs of ‘Disney +’ as an inflight entertainment. The new service has been available on all　international flights since July and on all domestic flights since August.

Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) Japan Outbound Tourism Council (JOTC) is building a joint promotion framework with Europe Travel Commission (ETC) to address recovery of traveling to Europe, including a variety of promotions in coming Tourism EXPO Japan.

JR EAST, Hoshino Resorts and LINE Yahoo talked about how they use generative AI at an annual conference ‘Google Cloud Next Tokyo ’24.' Tomoyuki Hirate, Google Cloud President Japan, said “AI is definitely shifting from the trial stage to the usage stage in the business world.”

ANA and JTB jointly develop a two-days tour traveling from Miyako, a remote island in Okinawa, to Memanbetsu in Hokkaido with a private jet ‘Falcon 2000 LXS’, targeting luxury travelers.

Japan Tourism Agency has estimated that an economic impact boosted by international skiers and snowboarders was about 64.3 billion yen in 2023, recognizing that ski and snowboard are key tourism activities to increase local spending and extend stay days in local areas.

Raffles Tokyo with 130 rooms will open on the 36th to 48th floors of the main and terminal of the renovated World Trade Center in 2028. This will be the first Raffles hotel in Japan.

ANA will begin serving Haneda-Milan, Stockholm and Istanbul after December 2024, expanding its Europe network to 49 flights a week to nine cities in eight countries.

The Japanese government focuses on sending inbound tourists to local areas and avoiding over-tourism, forecasting record-high 35 million international visitors and also record-high travel spending of 8 trillion yen in 2024.

According to The Teikoku Data Bank (TDB)’ survey, total revenue of hotels and ryokans in Japan in FY2023 ending March 31 2024 is expected to reach 4.9 trillion yen, almost the same revenue as FY2019.

HIS overseas travel bookings in this summer vacation period was 97.5% of the last year, but just 52.3% of the 2019 level. The most-booked destination was Seoul, followed by Taipei, Honolulu. Bangkok and Singapore.

JTB has forecasted the number of Japanese travelers will decrease by 4.1% year on year to 69.8 million in total. Outbound travelers are expected to increase by 1.2% year on year to 1.75 million, around 65% of the pre-pandemic level.