Digital

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

JTB and Airbnb Japan have launched a local revitalization project named ‘Mirai Nigiwai Kobo’ in Japanese to solve a variety of issues in local areas and create new sustainable values.

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.

Rakuten Travel, one of the largest OTAs in Japan, has launched an AI agent ‘Rakuten Travel AI Hotel Search’ that assists a user to find hotel or ryokan candidates, based on reviews and the booking trend analysis data.

‘JTB BÓKUN,’ an activity booking management system, has launched a new system linkage with ‘OMUSUBI,’ a SEEC’s booking management system to manage bookings from multiple OTAs.

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.

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.

ahoo! Search has begun offering a AI assistant function for a user to create travel routes in conversation with generative AI.

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.

JR Tokai, JR West Japan and JR Kyushu will begin a new Shinkansen booking service on LINE, the biggest communication app in Japan. PayPay, a digital wallet, can be selected as payment.

Activity booking platform Klook and Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) launched a Muslim-friendly campaign ‘Jelajah Hong Kong, proposing proposes Muslim-friendly tourist spots, activities, hotels, halal foods and worships.

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?

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.’