News

Imperial Hotel, Tokyo announced launch of a new service apartment business, for which 99 rooms on the third floor have been renovated, expecting to meet new needs, such as the second working space for corporate executives, business continuity plan (BCP) or the second house for a wealthy class.

The first Playbook for stakeholders is unveiled to show principles in order of time, before your travel, entering Japan, at the games and leaving Japan, and also what you have to ensure all the time, including ‘Do not use public transport unless given permission.'

Odawara Tourism Association in Kanagawa Prefecture has started selling online tour ‘Online Ninja Experience (ONE),' expecting that Ninja will be a tourism content to attract international travelers after the pandemic.

HIS has launched ‘TABIFLEEEEEK,’ a paid membership online community to create new travel services or products with ideas from the travel lover community and to seize demands after the pandemic.

JTB has developed ‘JTB MaaS API Gateway’ as a tourism-oriented MaaS software. The software provides travelers with seamless services from product search, booking and payment to mobility experience through API connection between the gateway and tourism operators’ apps.

JTB is enhancing the tourism platform function through a new partnership with BOUKUN, a TripAdvisor business unit for a management service of local tours or attractions. Also, JTB revealed introduction of ‘OLI’OLI Hawaii app’ for its customers traveling in Hawaii.

ANA Holdings announced the business results for the first none months of FY2020 ended December 31 2020, posting the most net loss ever of 309.5 billion JPY even though the airline benefitted 34 billion JPY from Go To Travel program. Forecast of net loss of 510 billion JPY for the full year is unchanged.

DMO KYOTO has developed ‘Visit Intent Index’ to measure tourists’ intents to visit Kyoto in a quantitative way. In December 2020, both of actual visitors and the visit intent index dropped to 60.7 and 67.1 because ‘Go To Travel’ program was tentatively suspended amid re-spread of COVID-19.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers was down 84.2% year on year to 3,174,200 in 2020, including 33,000 in December 2020 only.

The number of international arrivals in Japan was just 4,115,900 in 2020, which was one tenth of the government’s goal of 40 million for 2020. In December 2020 only, international arrivals were down 97.7% year on year to 58,700.

users of Japanese domestic travel recovery program ‘Go To Travel’ reached about 82.8 million guest nights in total by December 15 2020, using a budget of 484.2 billion JPY at least for the program.

Nippon Express Travel established in 1955 will be dissolved in the end of this coming March despite no debt because of the worsening environment surrounding the travel industry.

Sales of 47 major travel companies reduced by 55.5% year on year to 198.8 billion JPY in total in November 2020, and sales of domestic travel were still down by 25.8% to 193.2 billion JPY, however, the monthly reduction rate improved from 38.7% in October.

DMO KYOTO announced that the occupation rate of 35 hotels in Kyoto City was 31.1% in the New Year holiday period, and 63.8% of all bookings in the period were cancelled following the announcement of the tentative suspension of 'Go To Travel' nationwide on December 14 2020.

Japan Railway East will operate a special remote-work train car on the Tohoku Shinkansen line for business travelers, looking for a new business opportunity under new normal lifestyle.

Public and private exhibitors for Tourism EXPO Japan Tokyo Business Meetings & Travel Festa deliver messages online because the event was cancelled amid the state of emergency declaration in Tokyo.

The Japanese government has decided to suspend business and residence tracks between Japan and 11 designated countries and regions until February 7 2021 to prevent a new variant of COVID-19 from flowing into Japan.

Sharing Economy Association says that the sharing economy market scale of Japan is expected to reach 2.1 trillion JPY in FY2020 and to grow to 14.2 trillion JPY without any anxieties about COVID-19. The market scale of space sharing services including private home sharing will amount to 342.9 billion JPY in FY2020.

According to the new DMO guideline, Japan Tourism Agency canceled registrations of seven DMO candidates, while approving registration renewals of all 41 registered DMOs.

Following the the state of emergency declaration until February 7, ANA and JAL will cut additional domestic flights, reducing operation rate to around 56% during the period.