Japan Bound

The average occupancy rate of 113 hotels in Kyoto City was 76.8% in August 2025, and ADR was down 6.7% to 16,863 yen. DMO KYOTO has forecasted that the occupancy rates are expected to be 86.2% in October.

JTB has launched a new sharing service ‘Baggage GO’ to match a traveler who wants to deliver baggage in a tourist destination with a driver who wants to take it on a system.

Event booking platform ‘Peatix’ has launched ‘Visiting Japan,’ a new service for international visitors to Japan to find and book events in multi-languages.

JR East, a Japanese railway company covering eastern Japan, has begun linking ‘Welcome Suica Mobile,’ an app for international visitors to Japan, with JR-EAST Train Reservation,’ a ticket booking platform.

Tourism EXPO Japan 2025 with a theme of ‘Travel for Discovery and New Encounters’ opened at Aichi Sky Expo in Aichi Prefecture on September 25. At the opening ceremony, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba sent a video message: “Tourism is a core industry in the regions.

Airbnb's economic contribution to GDP by stays and the related spending in Japan amounted to 770 billion yen in 2024, according to the survey conducted by Oxford Economics.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in August 2025 was up 16.9% year on year to 3,428,000. After the single-digit growths for the past two months, the growth rate returned to double-digit again.

JR Tokai, JR West Japan and JR Kyushu have begun selling QR code for Shinkansen, instead of paper tickets, for Chinese travelers on Wechat mini program, working with Linktivity.

OTA Agoda announced that the city in Asia with the most repeat travelers in the first half of 2025 was Bangkok, followed by Tokyo. By country or region, the top was Japan.

A new tour guided by avatar robot ‘OriHime’ in Nihonbashi area was launched. A pilot can guide a traveler through the "OriHime" that sets on your shoulders, allowing them to walk and talk.

WeatherNews has forecasted that autumn leaves this year are expected to be at their average peak or a little bit behind usual nationwide. Part of autumn leaves might be damaged the colors.

JTB launched a new inbound travel strategy ‘Inbound VISION 2030' with goals to increase transactions by 2.7 times and gross profit by 2.9 times by 2030 compared to 2025.

71.1% of travelers to Japan from Taiwan and Hong Kong have full breakfast during staying in Japan. 68% select local restaurant or cafe as the most preferable place for breakfast.

Dentsu's ‘Japan Brand Survey 2025’ shows that Japan was by far a top destination to revisit, as 52.7% of all respondents answered that they want to visit Japan again, and the satisfaction rates of foreign travelers who have visited local regions were 96.2%.

M3 Career, medical human resource business provider, launched a new online medical treatment service ‘Hotel de DOCTOR 24’ in April 2025. How good is ‘Hotel de DOCTOR 24’ for hotels, doctors and patients?

The number of international arrivals in Japan in July 2025 was up 4.4% year on year to record-high 3,437,000 for July, despite the growth rate was the lowest in this year.

The current diffusion index (DI) of purchasing intensions by international visitors was 65, the almost same as the previous quarter, but the future judgement DI was 65, three lower points than the previous quarter.

NAVITIME Japan announced the most popular cherry blossom spots for international visitors by region in this spring, based on data from the navigation app for international visitors ‘Japan Travel by NAVITIME.’

Kyoji Kuramochi, Vice President of JRTT and former Deputy Director of Civil Aviation Bureau, talked about how important local airports are to achieve a goal of 60 million international visitors

JTB and Japan Art Council Japan Cultural Expo 2.0 has started selling digital ticket packaging admissions of 30 Japan Cultural Expo 2.0-related facilities nationwide in Japan.