Travel Sectors

Kyushu Tourism Promotion Organization, JTB and Salesforce Japan signed a comprehensive partnership agreement to promote tourism DX, launching a tourism platform to increase fans of Kyushu and repeaters for sustainable economic growth over Kyushu.

Korea Air resumed two flights a week between Haneda and Gimpo (Seoul) with 737-900ER on June 26 2022, followed by ANA on July 1.

AndBeyondTokyo, a Tokyo-based tour operator, run helter-skelter to receive its first international customers after the partial reopening of leisure-purpose travelers from San Francisco. Too many hurdles are still on the road to Japan. What are CEO Kuroiwa worried about?

ANA, JAL, JR Tokai, JR East and Tokyo Metro is developing a joint tourism campaign ‘Welcome Back Tokyo,' offering gift opportunities on Instagram and Twitter.

ZIP AIR Tokyo, a JAL subsidiary LCC, will launch Narita-San Jose services in December 2022 as its second U.S. route, giving up ‘Z’ logo on the vertical tail probably because ‘Z’ is recognized as a symbol of Russian forces.

Tourism White Paper 2022 clearly states that Japan Tourism Agency aims to reform tourism services and local revitalization by using digital technologies, showing concrete directions to solve the current challenges in the travel industry space.

Domestic tourism campaign will be extended from within the six designated regional blocks currently to the whole nation in early July 2022, financially supporting up to 8,000 JPY a night for travels using public transportation and up to 5,000 JPY a night for other travels.

Nippon Travel Agency or NTA signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with Gaia Link to use ‘Virbela’ metaverse platform for local communities, corporate customers and eduction providers.

ZIP AIR TOKYO, JAL group’s LCC, will increase its Narita-Singapore service to five flights a week during this summer between July 16 and August 31.

ANA will terminate flight reductions from/to Haneda Airport in this summer, serving 23,830 Haneda fights including seasonal flights during the two months, which will be more than 23,475 flights three years ago.

Overseas Tour Operators Association of Japan or OTOA demanded further deregulations of cross-border tourism and called for global standard dealings to Japaneses travel companies. Chairman said Japan is not selected as a tourist destination if the regulations goes on.

Japan Tourism Agency announced a guideline for tour operators, tour conductors and accommodations in accepting international package tours, requiring to register tour applicants to the Entrants, Returnees Follow-up System or ERFS.

Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition unveiled contents of private companies and organizations’ pavilions, including ‘MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM Pavilion’ by Bandai Namco.

JTB aims at practical carbon neutral by FY2050 after achieving practical zero CO2 emission by itself by FY2030, reducing electric power consumption in the Scope 1 and 2 stages and developing collaboration with business partners in the Scope 3 stage.

Sales of 45 major travel companies increased by 106.7% year on year to 323.6 billion JPY in total in March 2022, and sales in domestic travel were up 22.6% even compared to March 2019.

JTB has started selling ‘regenerative tourism’ tours in Canada, based on a partnership agreement with Destination Canada, including study of indigenous cultures escorted by a local indigenous guide.

JAL will resume three Narita-Kona, Hawaii flights a week and two Narita-Guam flights a week in August this year. The flights will be served for the first time in the past two years.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan lowered the COVID-19-related travel warning from LEVEL 2 “Avoid unessential travel’ to LEVEL 1 ‘Traveling carefully’ in 36 countries and regions.

The Japanese government has decided that international visitors to Japan from designated low-risk countries and regions will be exempted from arrival test and quarantine on June 1, raising the entry ceiling from 10,000 entries a day today to 20,000 entries a day.

Japan Tourism Agency will develop a pilot program to restart receiving leisure-purpose inbound travel by the end of Mayto draw up a guideline for tour operators and accommodation providers.