Japanese Travelers

45% of Japanese respondents are interested in vacation rental as on option of accommodations, selecting ‘condominium or apartment' as the top, although the awareness rate is still low at 19%, according to Expedia survey.

Japan will suspend new entries from all of foreign countries and regions until January 31 2021 to avoid possible inclusion of new variants of COVID-19, and the 14-days quarantine exemption for short-term business travelers will also be suspended.

JTB Tourism Research & Consulting has calculated losses of 9.6 million travelers and 318.7 billion JPY in travel consumption due to the tentative suspension. Japanese domestic travelers during 2020-2021 New Year holiday period is expected to reduce by 73% to 7.9 million from 29.3 million a year ago.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers was down 98.1% year on year to 30,700 in November 2020.No large increase was seen in November, despite ease of quarantine for Japanese business travelers after returning to Japan and start of pre-test program for Japanese travelers in Hawaii.

Japanese guest nights in Kyoto City in October 2020 were up 2.2% year on year, the first monthly growth in the past 13 months since September 2019, and the average occupancy rate was also up 8.2 point to 41.0% compared to September, marking the first 40% or higher since Declaration of the State of Emergency.

The JTB survey on travel trend in this coming New Year holidays results find that the ratio of ‘traveling including homecoming’ accounted for 14.8% including ‘probably traveling (6.9%),’ which was 5.2 lower points than a year ago.

The total number of Japanese guest nights in October 2020 was down 17.2% year on year to 33 million, improving by 19 points from a 36.2% reduction in September 2020, clearly boosted by the government’s domestic travel recovery initiative ‘Go To Travel.'

JAL has started selling ‘JAL Dynamic Package ‘ tours to motivate living in two regions for Obihiro City (Hokkaido), Toyoka City (Hyogo), Munakata City (Fukuoka) and Aso City (Kumamoto).

JAL Group LCC ZIPAIR sells optional PCR test package to passengers on it Narita-Honolulu flights, which will be launched on December 19, to ensure their travel confidence.

Users for the Japanese government’s leading domestic travel recovery initiative ‘ Go To Travel’ reached about 52.6 million by November 15. For the half a month by November 15 only, about 8.25 million users increased.

Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau (OCVB) targets 3.7 million arrivals in FY2020 and 6.7 million domestic arrivals and 300,000 international arrivals in FY2021, supposing that the current COVID-19 condition including travel restrictions, will improve.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers was down 98.1% year on year to 31,000 in October 2020, as the reduction rates of international flights and available seats were unchanged from the previous month.

Japanese LCC Peach Aviation offers an antigen test opportunity to a passenger at test fee of 3,000 JPY on domestic Kansai-Miyazaki and Kansai-Amami routes. Peach expects to verify how the test is effective to improve travelers’ confidences.

ANA will increase Haneda-Honolulu services in this coming December and during the New Year holiday period, following start of pre-test program for Japanese travelers by State of Hawaii.

The total number of Japanese guest nights was down 37.4% year on year to 25.3 million in September 2020, improving from a 51.8% reduction in August 2020, and the average occupancy rate was still low with 35.6%, but improved from 31.9% in August 2020.

Japanese guest nights in Kyoto City were down 23.9% in September 2020 year on year, but the monthly result recovered well to the 80% level a year ago. The average occupancy rate was 33.0%, 10.2 points higher than August (22.8%).

The latest survey of the well-known guidebook shows that 30.4% of the total said that they hope to go abroad ‘after July 2021,' and 35.8% said that they will reselect a destination. Also, an interesting finding is that 35.8% answered that they hesitate to travel abroad if a test is charged.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers was down 98.2% year on year to 31,600 in September 2020, considerably reducing from 1.75 million a year ago. After October, business tracks between Japan and several Asian countries started.

Digital Native Generation in Japan is positive in new normal life amid COVID-19, saying like ‘Everything can be done with digital in my life (58.9%), while many answers are found in 'not keeping enjoying online services replacing real experiences.'

Domestic travel consumption by Japanese travelers was down 83.3% year on year to 1,004 billion JPY in the second quarter of 2020 under the state of emergency declaration, which was lifted on May 25.