Japan Bound

E-ticket booking platform Linktivity has begun selling QR code-based digital tickets of private railways in Kansai and Kanto areas through partnerships with more than 400 OTAs worldwide.

Yamanashi Prefecture and Shizuoka Prefecture, the gateway of Mt.Fuji, will launch management systems to control climbers on July 1 2024, expecting the regulations will be a model case to solve over-tourism.

The number of international visitors to Japan in May 2024 was up 9.6% to record-high 3,040,100 for May compared to the same month of 2019. The largest source market was South Korea with 738,800 visitors.

‘Tourism EXPO Japan 2025’ will be held in Aichi Sky Expo in Aichi Prefecture for the first time, appealing Chubu and Hokuriku areas. Tourism EXPO Japan 2024 will open in Tokyo Big Sight on September 26 2024.

78% of all DMOs or prefectures in Japan target Taiwan as a source market, followed by Australia (51.4%) and U.S. (49.7%), ‘because tourism resources and contents are compatible with the target markets (64.4%).'

The total number of guest nights in April 2024 (provisionally) was up 11.9% year on year to 50.9 million, which were also up 0.5% compared to the same month of 2019, and guest nights of foreigner travelers were up 16.5% to 13.2 million.

NTT Broadband Platform (NTTBP) has begun providing ‘Japan Wi-Fi Funalytics,’ a new service to visualize and analyze inbound travelers’ movements with data from free Wi-Fi access app.

Tokyo Shibuya Ward and Honolulu of Hawaii signed a sister city agreement to work together for sharing knowledge and experiences in tourism, eduction, sports and environment.

Kiraku, a Japanese accommodation developer, revealed that a joint venture with Hyatt Hotels Corporation will open luxury ryokan ‘ATONA’ in 2026.

Leaders of Japan, China and South Korea agreed to increase exchange of people among the tree nations to 40 million by 2030, designating ‘Culture Exchange Years’ for the next two years.

More than 90% of visitors from Taiwan and Hong Kong want to buy foods as dinner in department stores or supermarkets in traveling in Japan.

Yamanashi Prefecture will introduce a pre-booking program to collect admission fees from climbers to Mt.Fuji on July 1 2024. The prefecture placed a gate in the Mt. Fuji fifth entrance station to collect admission fees this year.

Trip.com received more travel bookings from mainland China to Japan in the first quarter of 2024 than the same period of 2019, and bookings in local areas of Japan have increased.

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.