Travel Sectors

Japan Business Federation or Keidanren summarized a proposal titled ‘Innovation to sustainable and resilient tourism' to seek ‘autonomous tourism,’ ‘new-typed tourism’ and ‘sustainable tourism.'

Sales of 45 major travel companies decreased by 13.7% year on year to 170 billion JPY in total in November 2021. Sales in domestic travel were down 16.5% year on year to 160.9 billion JPY (down 37.9% over two years ago).

According to Japan Finance Corporation (JFC) survey, 49.5% of lodging providers answered that purchase costs rose, and 69.2% said that they could not pass on the costs to sales prices.

Hiroyuki Takahashi, who took office as Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) Chairman in December 2021, said at a New Year press conference, “My priority mission as JATA chairman is regeneration of tourism.”

The total number of guest nights in November 2021 was down 3.8% year on year to 35.3 million, and the occupation rate was 46%, 0.7 higher points than a year ago than November 2020 or 20 lower points than November 2019.

JR EAST launched ‘JR TIMES,’ an travel information site exclusively for Taiwanese travelers for the future, offering a cross-border EC function to sell limited local products in Japan.

JAL drew up the FY2021-FY2025 midterm management plan, for which one of business pillars is ‘ESG Strategy.’ Aiming at net zero emission in 2050, JAL is developing three arrows including expansion of flights using SAF.

HIS posted a net loss of 50 billion JPY for FY2021 ended October 31 2021, doubling from the previous fiscal year. Hideo Sawada, HIS President said. “We expect that overseas travel demand may begin recovering the next summer.”

A new hotel with onsen will be opened inside of a new baseball stadium ‘ES CON Filed Hokkaido’ for Japanese professional baseball team Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters.

WiT Japan & North Asia will be organized on January 14 and 15 2022 for the first time in the past two years. Kei Shibata and Aya Aso, WiT organizers, talked about highlight sessions they are interested in.

90% of hotels and ryokans in Japan said that they should address SDGs, and 38.3% answered that they have already started to take some actions for SDGs. 32.8%, however, said that they have not addressed SDGs yet.

Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau (TCVB) and Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau (OCTB) signed a comprehensive partnership agreement in the tourism space to develop joint promotions.

Sales in domestic travel of 45 major travel companies were down 25.7% year on year to 114.2 billion JPY (down 53.6% over two years ago) in October 2021 even after the declaration of a state of emergency was lifted.

Miyama in Kyoto and Niseko in Hokkaido were selected as UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)‘Best Tourism Villages 2021’ based on SDGs to preserve local communities and cultures.

Hilton will open ‘The Waldorf-Astoria Osaka’ and its lifestyle brand ‘Canopy by Hilton Osaka Umeda’ in front of Osaka Station under a contract with ORIX Real Estate.

Rakuten Group and Marriott International has officially started a strategic partnership for both of the loyalty programs to encourage Rakuten members to join Marriott loyalty program ‘Marriott Bonvoy.’

The Japanese government has decided a FY2021 supplementary budget of 36 trillion JPY in total to recover from the economic downturn under the pandemic. For ‘Go To Travel’ program, additional 269 billion JPY have been approved.

JTB reduced domestic travel sales by 11.5% year on year to 31.8 billion JPY in September 2021, down 61.8% compared to two years ago.

JR East, a Japanese railway company, and Satoyume, a local revitalization business start-up, launched a special-purpose company for ‘Hotels along the line’ project.

JTB announced that it has forecast to move into the black for the full year of FY2021 ended March 31 2022, posting net profit of 6.7 billion JPY for the first six months due to selling of several real estates including its headquarters building.