Travel Sectors

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China said that visa wavier for 6 countries has been working well, for the first three days, about 7,000 out of all travelers of about 18,000 from those countries entered China without visas.

Hankyu Travel International, a major travel company of Japan, and NAVITIME JAPAN, a navigation app provider, will jointly develop tours for luxury inbound travelers.

NTT Data, a major Japanese data company, will open a capsule hotel specializing in sleep analysis, acquiring, accumulating and analyzing sleep data using infrared cameras, sound-collecting microphones, and body movement sensors.

Amazon Japan (Amazon) has begun offering ‘Alexa Smart Properties (ASP)’ as a service for businesses using the personal AI assistant Alexa. Tokyu Hotels & Resorts will introduce Echo Show 8 to 56 premium class rooms at the lifestyle hotel "SAPPORO STREAM HOTEL" that will open in Sapporo on January 16 2024.

JTB forecasted the total number of Japanese travelers would be up 5% year on year or down 5% over 2019 to 28.6 million during this coming New Year holiday period. Domestic travelers are estimated at 28 million, and Japanese outbound travelers at 580,000.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) launched a special website for the Osaka Kansai Expo, expecting the Expo is an opportunity to encourage inbound tourists to visit regional areas.

Japan and U.S. signed a memorandum of cooperation designating 2024 as the ‘U.S.-Japan Tourism Year’ to strengthen tourism and business exchanges between U.S. and Japan, hoping to return Japan to the number two spot in terms of number of visitors to U.S.

‘Symposium on Japanese outbound travel promotion’ at Tourism EXPO 2023 in Osaka focused on how the outbound travel market should be boosted, introducing market analyses by Spain, Malaysia and Thailand.

Sato-koya, a mountain cabin located in the 5th station of Mt.Fuji, will begin providing a tour to stay in the winter. The price is 79,200 JPY a night a person, including a variety of activities and a guide tour.

Guest satisfaction rates in Japan were down 30 points for mid-scale hotels and 19 points for economy hotels in 2023 compared to the previous survey, mainly affected by price hikes. Top up-scale hotel is Hilton.

JTB achieved the first half-year operating income in the past four years for the first half of FY2023 due to recovery of all travel business, posting 8.7 billion JPY, improving from operating loss of 4.7 billion JPY a year ago because of well-recovery of the travel business.

Sales of 43 major travel companies in September 2023 were down 26.9% to 316 billion JPY compared to the same month of 2019. The top was JTB Group with sales of 110 billion JPY (down 23%), followed by NTA with 34 billion JPY (down 16.7%).

Japan Travel and Tourism Association has built ‘Japan Travel and Tourism Association Digital Platform’ to help local regions use tourism data analysis for sustainable tourism business, offering a basic function and a paid extension function.

Hoshino Resorts, a Japan’s hotel chain, has started selling an unique stay plan without a smartphone, named ‘No Smartphone Stay.’ In checking in, smartphone is sealed in the box.

JTB and MOL Cruises signed a partnership agreement for JTB to charter a new MOL small luxury cruise ship ‘MITSUI OCEAN FUJI’ for 91-days world cruise. The world cruise will depart from Yokohama to stop by 19 cities in 14 countries.

Accor announced that they will open 12 Grand Mercure hotels and 11 Mercure hotels in Japan nationwide at the same time on April 1 2024 and develop ‘#Hanare Tabi (Remote Travel in English)’ project as a new travel style.

Sales of 182 amusement park and theme park operators in Japan in FY2022 increased by 48.7% year on year to 760.3 billion JPY in total. The top in terms of sales was Oriental Land, operator of Tokyo Disney Resort, with 410.5 billion JPY.

JAL Group resulted in more revenue, EBIT and net profit for the first half of FY2023 than the same period of FY2019 and has revised the full-year financial forecast upward.

ANA Holdings posted record-high operating revenue and operating income for the first half of FY2023 (April 1 to September 30) and has decided to pay a dividend of 30 JPY for the first time in five years.

Three regional airlines, ANA and JAL established Essential Air Service Alliance or EAS Alliance to maintain flight networks for remote areas and boost travel demand.