Travel Sectors

ANA will begin serving Haneda-Milan, Stockholm and Istanbul after December 2024, expanding its Europe network to 49 flights a week to nine cities in eight countries.

The Japanese government focuses on sending inbound tourists to local areas and avoiding over-tourism, forecasting record-high 35 million international visitors and also record-high travel spending of 8 trillion yen in 2024.

According to The Teikoku Data Bank (TDB)’ survey, total revenue of hotels and ryokans in Japan in FY2023 ending March 31 2024 is expected to reach 4.9 trillion yen, almost the same revenue as FY2019.

HIS overseas travel bookings in this summer vacation period was 97.5% of the last year, but just 52.3% of the 2019 level. The most-booked destination was Seoul, followed by Taipei, Honolulu. Bangkok and Singapore.

JTB has forecasted the number of Japanese travelers will decrease by 4.1% year on year to 69.8 million in total. Outbound travelers are expected to increase by 1.2% year on year to 1.75 million, around 65% of the pre-pandemic level.

The MICHELIN Guide announced the first 108 MICHELIN Key hotels and ryokan, six Three Key hotels and ryokans, 17 Two Key and 85 One Key, out of 243 MICHELIN Guide Hotel Selections (as of July 1 2024).

According to Tokyo Shoko Research, the number of newly launched travel or accommodation businesses in 2023 increased by 59% year on year to 1,560, more than 1,500 for the first time in the past four years.

[PR] The 9th ‘Digital Travel APAC 2024,’ an annual travel-tech summit for APAC, will be organized by Worldwide Business Research (WBR) in Singapore for two days from August 14 2024, joined by more than 200 professionals from the travel industry.

JAL has launched its original platform to match human resources in urban areas with challenges in local areas. The platform helps users search areas, contents, term or budget meeting their own needs.

‘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.

JTB has completed a system linkage between ‘JTB BÓKUN,’ a BtoB activity booking management system, and ‘KEY STATION,’ a remote key delivery system.

APA HOTEL of Japan completed purchase of Hilton Seattle, opening it as ‘Coast Seattle Downtown Hotel by APA’ on June 13. It is the first hotel of APA Group in U.S.

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%).'

‘Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto,’ the first Banyan Tree brand in Japan, will open on July 26 2024, offering 52 rooms in six different types, including eight rooms with onsen facilities.

Club Tourism, a Japanese travel company especially for elder people, targets 30s to 50s females as well as senior people, a core target, for ’solo travel’ tours. Club Tourism marketed more than 1,300 solo travel tours in 2023.

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.

Sales of 43 major travel companies in March 2024 were down 6.1% to 421.2 billion JPY compared to the same month of 2019. Sales in overseas travel were up 65.6% year on year to 116.7 billion JPY, but the result was still down 33.1% compared to March 2019.

ANA X has started selling tours for overseas destinations with no ANA scheduled flights by using other flights than ANA, such as Guam by United Airlines or Seoul by Asiana Airlines.

International Tourism Trade Show 2024 was held in Tokyo Big Sight for three days from May 8th to 10th as a new BtoB tourism event, organizing the 2nd International Wellness Tourism EXPO and the first Tourism Marketing EXPO.