According to the survey conducted by Royalty Marketing which operates the common accumulating points service “Ponta”, on-line reservation has become the major method for travel reservation and application; 43.2% of reservations were made by “travel agency (online)” and 32.6 % by “accommodation site (on-line)”.
18.7% of reservations were made by “travel agency (in-person visit)”, 5.5% by “travel agencies (telephone)”. In the aspect of gender and age groups, “travel agency (online)” ranked highest in all age groups, especially high among females between ages 30 to 39 (50.8%). On the other hand, reservation by “travel agency (in-person visit)” were made mostly by females between ages 20 to 29 (32.3%) followed by females between ages 30 to 39 (21.8%) and females between ages 50 to 59 (20.5%). 18.5% of females between ages 60 to 69; the female group which made the least reservations by “travel agency (online)” (37.3%), used “travel agency (in-person visit)” which is almost the same as the overall average. However, 11.4% of the same group used “travel agencies (telephone)” which is double the overall average (5.5%), and 10.7% “ticket office of transportation facility (in-person visit)” (overall average 6.1%). Unexpectedly, “travel agency (online)” were used the least by males between 20 to 29 (32.9%). 19.8 % of males between 20 to 29 made reservations by “travel agency (in-person visit)” which is the highest among males while 13.1% of the same group used “ticket office of transportation facility (in-person visit)”, about double the overall average, which indicate that the group has tendency of making in-person visits.
Additionally, concerning summer vacation period, 50.3% were “not notified/not decided” which show that half of those replied were undecided in early June when the survey was conducted. “Mid August” (28.0%) which is the “Obon” period (traditional Japanese summer holiday) highest for the summer vacation period followed by “early August” (9.9%) and “late August” (7.8%). Although increasing number of companies allow employees to choose summer vacation period, most are undecided in early June and the vacation period tend to concentrate in the predetermined mid August period.
The survey was conducted from June 7 to June 11, 2013. The survey was targeted at Ponta Research Members (male and female) age 20 to 69 in the Kanto and Kansai areas. Total number of valid reply was 2523.
