News

‘FUN! JAPAN,' a community website for Asian travelers to Japan, launched a new SNS, which is a service for community members to enjoy conversations with simultaneous translation.

Emirates will introduce A380 on the Dubai-Kansai route on June 1 2024, expecting to carry transit passengers to Milan, Madrid, Paris or London beyond Dubai from Japan.

Uber Japan will support Kaga City in Ishikawa Prefecture for a ride-share service by general drivers with its app. The Japanese government will deregulate the ride-share rules for general drivers in this spring.

Airbnb has begun offering its listed homes in Ishikawa Prefecture to victims of the Noto Peninsula earthquake as secondary shelters through non-profit organization Airbnb.org.

Japan Tourism Agency officially announced outlines of a travel discount program in the devastated Hokuriku. International visitors to Japan are eligible for the program, too.

ANA has started selling international flight tickets on trip.com through Travelfusion, a NDC aggregator, allowing a user to change a flight, repay and purchase optional services in addition to booking and ticketing on trip.com.

TradFit, a Japanese AI speaker provider for accommodation, launched a new service to recommend a right hotel in a destination based on data acquired from a user’s smartphone.

Europe Travel Commission (ETC) has been developing promotions in Japan to recover Japanese tourists to Europe as soon as possible amid several challenges, appealing sustainable tourism including gastronomy and railway.

Timee, a spare-time job matching platform, revealed that the number of spare-time job offerings by hotels increased by about 4.2 times in December 2023 compared to a year ago. it resulted from serious labor shortage in the hospitality industry in Japan.

JTB will start receiving applications for hospitality packages of Major League Baseball (MLB) opening games of Los Angeles Dodgers vs San Diego Padres in Seoul. A 4 days and 3 nights package for two games is offered at 728,000 JPY a person.

The total number of guest nights in December 2023 (provisionally) was up 9.4% year on year to 51.5 million, which were also up 9.3% compared to the same month of 2019. Foreigner travelers were up 32.3% to 12.1 million.

JAL has decided to begin serving daily flights between Haneda and Doha, Qatar on March 31 2024. JAL will become the first Japanese airline serving direct flights to a Middle East city.

Asia-Pacific Institute of Research (APIR) estimated spending by visitors to EXPO 2025 Osaka Kansai at 891.3 billion JPY in a basic case, which of 224 billion JPY for transportation, 173.5 billion JPY for accommodation, 161.9 billion JPY for drinking and eating, 186.7 billion JPY for shopping and 145 billion JPY for entertainment.

JTB and Asahi Breweries, a Japanese leading brewery company, have started a collaboration project to create high-quality entertainments and tourism services in the nighttime for inbound travelers.

ANA has revised upward the full-year financial forecast for FY2023 ending March 31 2024 because it has successfully earned higher-fare passengers on international flights and increased leisure travelers on domestic flights.

Narita International Airport passengers in 2023 was up 12% year on year to 32.7 million, out of which international flight passengers were up 77% to 25 million. Inbound travelers were up 270% year on year to 16 million (down 12% over 2019).

JTB Tourism Research & Consulting reported the survey results about usage of smartphone and travel spending in Japan. SNS is widely used not only for consumption-related information but also for news or current affairs.

ANA has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Trip.com Group to increase travelers from China to Japan, opening a flagship shop and deliver LIVE commerce on Trip.com website and app.

According to Booking.com, among top 10 destinations that are still unknown but are getting popularity among Asian travelers, Japanese regions ranks 3rd to 10th. Top was Camariñas in Spain, followed by Mexico, Missouri, USA.

To support the Noto Peninsula Earthquake-hit regions, a travel discount program is launched for four prefectures, which will be available from March to late April before Golden Week period starts.