Japan Bound

The number of international visitors to Japan in April 2024 was up 4.0% to 3,042,900 compared to the same month of 2019. For the first four months of 2024. the total already reached 11.6 million visitors in total.

The total number of guest nights in March 2024 (provisionally) was up 8.2% year on year to 54.9 million, which consisted of 42.2 million Japanese guests (up 1.3%) and 12.7 million foreigners' guests (up 33.4%).

Kintetsu Railway will sell digital tickets for the lines between Osaka Nanba or Kyoto and Nara to WeChat Pay users of China on WeChat mini program, working together with Linktivity.

GC Company, a South Korea’s unicorn OTA, has earnestly begun exploiting accommodation partners in Japan with a goal of annual transactions of about 110 billion yen for businesses in Japan by 2028.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) continues focusing on sending inbound travelers to local regions in FY2024, developing large-scale campaign for 10 Asian source markets in partnership with OTAs.

Japanese ‘Digital Nomad’ visa rule was enforced from April 1 2024. Japan Expert Immigration Law Firm supports foreigners who are interested in staying in Japan for their jobs. What are reasons for them to choose Japan as a nomad destination?

The number of international visitors to Japan in March 2024 was up 11.6% to record-high 3,081,600 on a single month, boosted by cherry blossom and the Easter break.

TOTO survey finds that 47.1% answered that clean public toilets make them have better images of the areas, and 88% want WASHLET with cleaning technology by hot water droplets in public toilets.

The number of guest nights in lawfully-registered home-sharing properties for the first two months of 2024 was up 27.7% to 239,333 compared to a year ago. Tokyo had the most 132,137 guest days.

JTB, Asahi Breweries and Jidaiya, a rickshaw operator, worked together for a inbound travel program to tour cherry blossom spots in Asakusa by rickshaw. The program is to boost nighttime economy by inbound travelers.

The total number of guest nights in February 2024 (provisionally) was up 17.0% year on year to 48.2 million. Guest nights by foreigner travelers were up 23.4% to 11.4 million compared to the same month of 2019.

SekainoKakehasi, providing family story research service, launched a new service for Japanese-descent foreigners as roots tourism to visit the ancestor-related places.

Boon Sian Chai, Managing Director and Vice President International Markets at Trip.com, talked about the present and the future of Trip.com, including the outbound travel market from China to Japan.

Ministry of Justice of Japan has started issuing ‘digital nomad’ visa to a foreigner with annual income of 10 million JPY or more in about 50 visa waiver countries or regions

The number of cross-border mobile payment ‘Alipay+’ member stores in Japan has exceeded 2 million. Payment amount with the affiliated e-wallets and bank app increased by 200%.

Toyo Metro and Linktivity, a BtoB e-ticket platform, formed a capital and business alliance with a plan to develop ‘Tokyo City Pass (provisional name),’ which is packaged with tourist attraction tickets and subway tickets.

The number of international visitors to Japan in February 2024 was up 7.1% to 2,788,000 compared to the same month of 2019, which were record-high on a single month basis after the pandemic.

Ibaraki Prefecture and Hong Kong-based experience booking platform Klook signed MOU to work together for inbound travel promotions.

‘JTB BÓKUN,’ an activity booking management system,’ has completed API integration with ‘byFood.com' for inbound travelers to Japan, enabling food tour providers on byFood.com to make their operations more effective.

Airport Limousine has started selling e-tickets on about 400 foreign-based OTAs trough API connections with sales channels on e-ticket booking platform Linktivity.