The JTB Group announced in January 2026 its long-term vision, "OPEN FRONTIER 2035.” Envisioning a world in 2035 where "human interaction serves as the foundation for people's well-being," the group aims to become a pioneering enterprise in this new era of interaction, setting financial goals of a transaction volume of 2.5 trillion yen, gross profit of 500 billion yen, and operating profit of 75 billion yen (before goodwill amortization) by FY2035.

The goal of raising the global profit ratio to 50% is designed to drive sustainable growth by redefining Japanese service quality and hospitality as value meeting global standards—a crucial move in an increasingly uncertain world.

On June 30 2026, Tomo Aomi took office as President and CEO. He previously steered operations in the North American, South American, and Hawaiian markets as President of JTB Americas through the end of 2025, and subsequently served as a Senior Managing Director responsible for driving the strategy behind the long-term vision starting in January 2026.

Travel Voice interviewed Aomi to listen to how he is going to rebuild the group business structures.

Businesses can be rebuilt agilely

In the execution of business operations,  Aomi places great importance on clearly establishing priorities for businesses and investments. Unconstrained by traditional organizational divisions, he individually assesses the status and growth potential of each business—such as travel sales, meetings and events, and BPO.

“When a company is burdened with a multitude of internal frameworks, whether organizational or strategic, it is difficult for it to to gain a clear view of each individual business,” he said. “By looking directly at the businesses themselves, I am dynamically going to reconfigure them in response to customer challenges and flexibly combine solutions.”

Under the concept, he has an idea in the global business to restructure the current organization and identify strategic areas that span multiple regions.

This entails redefining ‘global business,’ which previously referred only to operations conducted by overseas offices, to position Japan as one of the regions within the global network. The strategy is to build a cross-regional global business by selecting initiatives that leverage collaboration across hubs in Japan, the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere. By pooling the strengths of each region and driving business through global collaboration, JTB aims to become a world-leading enterprise in key sectors, including DMC services.

Customer challenges cannot always be resolved by a single business unit or service alone. Accordingly, Aomi aims to move away from offering services compartmentalized by internal structures, and instead to build a framework where business units can easily collaborate, with customer challenges serving as the starting point.

Focusing on six global business categories 

In the global business, JTB puts priorities on land operator, Seat-in-Coach, corporate event, business travel, tourism intelligence and sports hospitality. 

On his experience overseeing operations in the Americas as President of JTB Americas, Aomi understood that sports hospitality, which gathers people and shares their times, create the immense business value. 

JTB is an official partner of Major League Baseball (MLB) and has secured exclusive domestic sales rights for the 2027 Rugby World Cup. The company intends to maximize the synergies of its global network by leveraging the competitive edge gained through its established intellectual property (IP) rights, while also exploring business expansion between third-party countries.

Aomi said that the experience accumulated in the sports sector can be further applied to fields such as entertainment and traditional culture.

Aomi also saw a huge potentiality for corporate MICE when he was in U.S. In 2026, MC&A, a subsidiary of JTB Americas, acquired the event production company Imprint Events Group. JTB are strengthening its North American meetings and events business by combining MC&A’s operational capabilities with Imprint’s creative-led planning expertise.

In the business travel sector, JTB is unifying strategies that were previously split between Japan and overseas markets to better secure business from global corporations. JTB is also establishing a framework to provide consistent service worldwide for the overseas business travel needs of Japanese companies.

Additionally, JTB plans to accelerate global expansion in two areas: the land operator business, which involves sourcing travel products at destinations and supplying them to travel agencies, and the ‘Seat-In-Coach’ model, which offers destination-based tours using shared buses.

In the tourism intelligence sector, JTB is leveraging the information, networks, and brand assets of its subsidiary, Northstar Travel Group. It aims to roll out the business models Northstar has developed, spanning media, events, and related organizations to markets around the world.

2026年6月30日付で代表取締役社長執行役員に就任した青海社長

Three pillars for the inbound travel businesses

As part of his vision for driving new growth in domestic operations, Aomi highlighted the ‘commercialization of sourcing capabilities’ within the inbound tourism business.

JTB has built strong relationships with numerous tourism operators, particularly hotels and traditional inns across Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, and has cultivated robust systems for sourcing guest rooms and travel products. "These are crucial relationships cultivated over 114 years," Aomi noted. "They are not easily replicated, and they represent a massive strength as the number of inbound tourists continues to rise.”

JTB intends to transform its sourcing capabilities from an internal function into a business that supplies accommodation inventory and travel experiences to travel agencies worldwide.

Aomi revealed, "While our primary focus is B2B wholesale to travel agencies, we also envision a B2B2C model involving direct online sales to overseas travelers.”

JTB possesses a nationwide procurement network covering accommodation facilities, capabilities for developing local experiences in partnership with regional communities, and connections with overseas travel agencies. JTB plans to link these assets to distribute Japanese travel products and experiences to the global market. Aomi emphasized, "Until now, the discussion centered on sharing our capabilities. Moving forward, we are reframing this not merely as a sharing of functions, but as a distinct business." Full-scale operations are targeted to begin in 2027.

Regarding its inbound travel business, JTB is pursuing a three-pillar strategy: commercializing these procurement capabilities, strengthening JTB Global Marketing & Travel (GMT), and generating synergies by bringing the major Asian DMC "EXO Travel Group" into the corporate fold.

Specifically, JTB aims to connect its network of overseas travel agencies, which sell trips to Japan, with the unique travel experiences developed in partnership with local governments and tourism operators across Japan. By connecting domestic regional networks with overseas sales channels, previously utilized separately, JTB intends to deliver local tourism content directly to specific international markets.

Aomi said, “If we can strengthen our global sales channels and the networks we have cultivated in local regions across Japan and combine the both, we will create a huge differentiation from others.”