Travel Sectors

Nara Prefecture strengthens gastronomy tourism for inbound travelers, offering specially-arranged tours focusing on sake or local foods in Nara.

Four-days ‘Tourism Expo Japan 2023 Osaka/Kansai’ was held with a theme of ‘OPEN THE DOOR TO THE FUTURE,’ from October 26 to 29 2023 to showcase the future of diversified tourism industries in Japan after the pandemic.

The Japanese government approved a policy package for measures against over-tourism with three pillars of manner eduction, more international visitors to local regions and joint tourism promotions with local communities.

Princess Cruises has started selling Yokohama-based cruises in 2025, serving 17 cruises visiting 34 cities in South Korea and Taiwan as well as in Japan.

Air Aisa X will restart serving four flights a week on the Kuala Lumpur- Sapporo route on December 3 2023.Hokkaido is a popular destination for Malaysians.

Celebrity Cruises will serve four Japan-based cruises in 2023 and expand to 18 cruises in total through 2024, expecting to welcome more than 30,000 passengers on board.

JTB published ‘JTB Outbound Travel Report 2023,' saying the outbound travel market of Japan was far from full-scale recovery because of weaker Yen and rise in prices in destinations.

JTB has began selling a 9-days New Year cruise tour for Guam and Saipan with MSC Bellissima on the Shopping Channel QVC, a TV shopping program.

Japan Tourism Agency classifies countermeasures against over-tourism as three concrete ideas at the second cross-ministries meeting on over-tourism preventions.

Yusen Cruise, a Japanese leading cruise operator, names a new 52,000 tons ship as ‘Asuka III,' which will enter into the service in 2025. Yusen says it will be a moving art museum on the sea.

The top-prize winners of ‘The 7th Japan Tourism Award' goes to ‘Hotels on the entire railway line project’ renovating vacant houses to hotel rooms and unmanned stations to hotel receptions along the JR Ome Line.

Sales of 43 major travel companies in July 2023 were down 29.4% over 2019 to 289.2 billion JPY. Sales in inbound travel recovered to a 14.4% reduction to 15.5 billion JPY.

The market scale of e-commerce by consumers (BtoC-EC) expanded to 22.7 trillion JPY in FY2022 ending March 31 2023 from 20.7 trillion JPY a year ago. The market scale of online dealings for travel services. except business trips, was up 68% to 2.4 trillion JPY.

Singapore Airlines will considerably expand its flight capacity for Japan in this coming October, as it restarts three flights a day for Haneda on October 1. The airline’s network for Japan will be restored to the pre-pandemic level.

Adventure Travel World Summit 2023 (ATWS 2023) opened in Sapporo, Hokkaido on September 11 for the first time in Asia. Shannon Stowel, ATTA CEO, said that Hokkaido has high-quality nature, culture and activity assets for adventure travel, and also they are very diversified.

JAL will serve three flights a week between Narita and Kona of Hawaii Island for this coming New Year holiday period, totally serving 33 flights a week between Narita, Haneda, Kansai and Chubu and Hawaii.

A Hawaii State Legislature delegate of a total of 13 members recently visited Japan to deepen economic partnership and friendship with Japan. They talked about the current condition in wildfire-damaged Maui.

The first meeting of a cross-ministries conference to discuss prevention or control of over-tourism was held on September 6 to sum up effective measures in this autumn. At the first meeting, the members shared the current challenges in tourism.

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) has requested a budget of 24.1 billion JPY for FY2024 starting April 1 2024, 2.2 times more budget than FY2023. For programs to solve the labor shortage issue particularly in the hospitality industry, 400 million JPY, 2.67 times more than FY2023 have been requested.

HIS, one of the leading travel companies in Japan, will launch a new subsidiary in Nairobi, Kenya in late September this year to provide travelers with accommodation services in Africa.