Digital

Tokyo Metro has begun selling a set of one-day passes on Amazon since November 29 2022 as its first year-around online ticket sales.

Navitime Japan, a Japan’s leading navigation solution provider, says ‘Japan Travel by NAVITIME’ have increased rapidly in September and October 2022. Searches by users in Asia particularly grew, and Hokkaido, Yamanashi and Oita were more searched.

Japan Culture and Technology (J-CAT) recently launched a local experience booking platform ‘Otonami’ listing a variety of high quality tour contents.

Rakuten Travel, a Japanese leading OTA, has released ‘Sustainable Icon’ to introduce sustainable efforts by hotels and ryokans on its booking platform　and give ‘Sustainable Travel Badge’ to them.

Local experience booking platform of Japan ‘Asoview’ and Hong Kong-based travel booking platform ‘Klook’ signed a strategic business partnership. On ‘Urakata Series,’ an Asoview’s SaaS-based service for tourism operators, Klook’s offering products are offered.

Digital Agency of Japan will integrate ‘My SOS,’ a health certificate app, into ‘Visit Japan Web’ on November 1 2022 to make faster immigration possible.

ANA is revamping ‘ANA Mileage Club App’ to a super app by installing mini apps for a variety of daily life services, accelerating it to 'super app' with a concept of ‘living with miles.’

JR East, a Japanese railway company covering eastern Japan, has begun selling NFT (non-fungible token) ) station name signs, celebrating the 150th anniversary of birth of the Japan’s first railway.

Universal Studios Japan (USJ) and Ant Group signed a corporate marketing partnership contract to introduce Alipay+ payment service in the park, expecting that the partnership will raise payment conveniences for visitors to Japan from Asia.

Online shopping spending a Japanese household in July 2022 was up 20.4% year on year to 21,940 JPY a month, and travel-related spending was up 2.4 times to 3,595 JYP a household.

Payn, a Japanese startup, has released bata ‘Payn’ to automatize a billing service for hotels or restaurants which have troubles with recouping cancellation fees, financing 90 million JPY from two investors.

Passport renewal in Japan will be made possible online on March 27 2023. A Japanese passport holder will no longer visit an application window for passport renewal procedure.

Searches for travel in Japan on major OTAs have been growing since the Japanese government announced the remaining travel restrictions on foreigners would be lifted on October 11 2022.

Sumitomo Mitsui Card, a leading credit card of Japan, will begin providing its cashless payment data to Tourism Forecast Platform, enabling users to analyze consumption behaviors of domestic and foreign travelers.

HIS has acquired shares of Rural, a startup to provide tourism-oriented digital currency ‘Rural Coin’ and ‘Rural NFT' to accelerate its new business in a Web 3.0 space.

Amsterdam-based Tiqets and Hong Kong-based Klook made a strategic partnership to connect their supply channels. Each of the brands aims to raise awareness in the partner's market.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has launched a digital promotion using the AR technology in Singapore, in which a user can enjoy virtual experience of the famous summer festival ‘Nebuta’ in Aomori Prefecture on a smartphone.

HIS, a Japanese leading travel firm, welcomed 1.3 million or more visitors in its virtual shop ‘HIS Travel World,’ which was launched in a smartphone metaverse space ‘REALITY World.'

Singapore-based OTA Agoda has been raising its presence in the Japan market. A leader of the OTA in Japan talked about its unique strategies both for domestic travel and for inbound travel.

The most popular travel-related website as of June 2022 was jalan.net, followed by Rakuten Travel and JAL. All of the top 10 sites increased unique users compared to a year ago,.Users of video sharing sites and SNS as travel information sources increased even compared to 2019.