News

HIS announced that the number of overseas travel bookings during this coming New Year holidays (December 26 2025 to January 4 2026) was slightly down 0.9% compared to a year ago.

JTB announced that the tourism giant in Japan acquires Northstar Travel Group (NTG) as a 100% subsidiary. .Eijiro Yamakita, JTB CEO, explained how JTB draws up its future picture with the acquisition of NTG.

The number of Japanese outbound travelers in October 2025 was up 8.3% year on year to 1,243,600. The growth rate was smaller than around 14% in the last 5 months.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in October 2025 was up 17.6% year on year to 3,896,300, record-braking for October with 580,000 more arrivals than a year ago.

The World’s Best New Hotel of ‘World Ski Award 2025’ was won by Nikko Style Niseko HANAZONO in Hokkaido, Japan. For the ski industry in Japan, winners are Rusutsu Resort for the Japan’s Best Ski Resort.

Tomoyuki Takada, Trip.com International Travel Japan General Manager, talked about the latest travel trends and local tourism as well as its supports and services. He also said AI development equals personalization.

Agoda formed a strategic partnership with Hoshino Resorts to enable a user to book all of the Hoshino Resorts to send foreign travelers to local areas in Japan.

International tourism award ‘TOURISE Award 2025' was announced. The first Best Overall Destination winner was Tokyo, highly valued as the city experience combined innovations and diversities.

Japan Travel Bureau Foundation (JTBF) analyzed why Japanese people do not travel, focusing on ages. ‘Polarization’ is progressing among senior travelers, and ‘range of interests in travel’ is shrinking among 20s.

According to Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection (BHTP)'s the safest country to travel 2026, Japan is ranked 9th and selected as one of Hall of Fame countries that have averaged a top-10 position since 2018.

UnionPay, the Chinese digital wallet, has started issuing an exclusive card for travelers to Kansai area in Japan to stimulate Chinese travers’ shopping minds.

DMM.com, a Japan’s entertainment EC provider, launched ‘DMM Travel Booking’ in partnership with Trip.com for the system linkage, which enables a user to search and book trip.com inventories.

Luggage storage provider Bounce has launched a luggage delivery service between Yamato Transport’s 3000 bases nationwide in Japan, allowing allows a traveler to deliver luggage between the Yamato’s offices or check-in counters.

JTB and JR Tokai, a Japan’s railway company, has launched luggage delivery service ‘LUGGAGE EXPRESS’ between Tokyo and Kyoto with Shinkansen. A traveler receives it at a hotel on the day.

Nippon Travel Agency (NTA), a major Japanese travel agency of Japan, and Innovative Space Carrier (ISC) signed a new business partnership contract to commercialize a space travel business.

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.