News

Rakuten Travel, one of the largest OTAs in Japan, has launched an overseas hotel booking service to offer more than 400,000 hotels to world’s travelers. This is an important milestone for Rakuten Travel to grow to a global OTA.

Kyoto City and DMO KYOTO send messages of tourism manners to foreign visitors in the busiest autumn leaves season in partnership with Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO).

Japan's Leisure White Paper 2025 reveals that the entire leisure market scale in 2024 increased by 5.6% year on year to 75.2 trillion yen, and ‘domestic travel’ was the top activity with 46.8 million in terms of the number of participants.

JW Marriott Hotel Tokyo opened in TAKANAWA GATEWAY CITY on October 2 2025. At the opening ceremony, Marriott International’s executives commented how important the hotel is in the Japanese market.

Tobu Top Tours, a Japanese travel agent, has started selling helicopter sightseeing tours looking down autumn leaves from the sky to enjoy autumn leaves comfortably avoiding traffic jam.

Cross-boarder EC payment service ‘Alipay+’ increased payment volume in Japan for the first nine months of 2025 by 30% year on year, growing payments in medical services, cosmetics, vending machines and entertainments.

Luxury hotel brand Six Senses with 57 guest rooms and suites and 21 residences will be developed in Myoko Suginohara Ski Resort area in Niigata Prefecture. The construction will begin in April 2026.

Traveloka signed a strategic partnership with NETSTARS, a Japanese cashless payment platform, to introduce ‘StarPay-Biz for Hotel,’ a payment platform service exclusively for hotels provided by NETSTARS.

The number of aircraft movements at Narita International Airport in this winter schedule (October 26 2025 to March 28 2026) increases by 3% year on year to 4,755 weekly.

The highest growth rate in international visitors to Japan was seen in Sakaiminato City, Tottori Prefecture, in the summer of 2025, showing 2.83 times more visitors than compared to a year earlier.

JTB, the largest travel agent of Japan, and Hawaii Tourism Japan (HTJ) signed an agreement to create tourism opportunities for advanced medical care and wellness.

The number of Japanese outbound travelers in September 2025 was up 15.0% year on year to 1,394,500, continuing 15% year-on-year growths since July.

Spending by international visitors for the third quarter of 2025 (July to September) increased by 11.1% year on year to 2.1 trillion yen. China topped the list with 590 billion yen (27.7% of total),

The number of international arrivals in Japan in September 2025 was up 13.7% year on year to 3,266,800, totaling 31.7 million arrivals for the first nine months.

Bounce Japan and NAVITIME Japan started the system linkage between Bounce Japan’s ‘Bounce' and NAVITIME’s ‘Japan Travel by NAVITIME' to help international visitors find baggage storage spots on their traveling routes.

JAL will start serving daily flights between Narita and Delhi, India with Boeing 787-8 on January 17 2026, expecting to meet both business and leisure travel demands and transit demands from South Asia to North America via Narita.

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.

Agoda implemented improvement of functions on the booking platform, including stricter compliance standards for third-party suppliers, an AI-based trouble detection tool and a 24/7 support service.

Michelin Guide unveiled 128 Michelin Key 2025 hotels and ryokans in Japan. 3 Michelin keys go to ‘Asaba’ in Shizuoka for the firs time (promoted from 2 key) in addition to six hotels selected last year.

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.