Travel Sectors

Rakuten Travel, a Japanese leading OTA, has released ‘Sustainable Icon’ to introduce sustainable efforts by hotels and ryokans on its booking platform　and give ‘Sustainable Travel Badge’ to them.

The total number of Japanese guest nights in September 2022 (provisionally) was up 70.5% year on year to 38.3 million, which were 5.4% fewer guests nights than the same month in 2019. The occupancy rate was 46.9% overall.

45% of about 800 targeted hotels and ryokans in Japan are expected to increase annual revenue for FY2022, according to Teikoku Databank. the most challenge to full-scale recovery is labor shortage in the hospitality industry

ANA posted net income of 19.6 billion JPY for the first half of FY2022 ended September 30 2022, the first half-year profit for the past three years. ANA has revised the full-year forecast upward.

Malaysia Airlines has augmented its Kuala Lumpur-Japan network since November 2022 to meet growing traveler demands from Malaysia, increasing flights for Haneda and Narita.

The latest Teikoku Databank survey finds that the ratio of companies suffering labour shortage reached 50.1% as of September 2022, which was the largest ratio since the pandemic began.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has restarted full-scale promotions to the world, following practical open of the border on October 11 2022, focusing on adventure tourism as well as higher-valued travel from Europe, U.S. and Australia particularly.

Sales of 43 major travel companies increased by 141.9% year on year to 194.2 billion JPY in total in August 2022. Sales in overseas travel were up 521.8% year on year to 34.3 billion JPY due to gradual restart of overseas travel package tours.

JAL will reduce oneway fuel surcharges on its international flights for two months from December 2022, reducing it for Hawaii from 37,400 JPY to 30,500JPY or for long-haul from 57,200 JPY to 47,000 JPY.

ANA is revamping ‘ANA Mileage Club App’ to a super app by installing mini apps for a variety of daily life services, accelerating it to 'super app' with a concept of ‘living with miles.’

ANA Holdings revealed that international flight bookings for 7 days between September 23 and 30 for flights in January 2023 doubled in point of sales in Japan and increased by five times in foreign point of sales .

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered that a new Tourism Promotion Plan as a public-private strategy should be drawn up by the end of March next year, especially eying Osaka Kansai EXPO in 2025.

A nationwide travel discount program began on October 11 2022 to boost domestic travel demand, but Several OTAs stopped selling the qualified products on the opening day because of no more availabilities.

ANA began flying special livery ‘ANA Green Jet’.' The first green Boeing 787 is operated for scheduled Haneda-San Francisco flights on October 5 2022, followed by the second one on some domestic routes in November.

Payn, a Japanese startup, has released bata ‘Payn’ to automatize a billing service for hotels or restaurants which have troubles with recouping cancellation fees, financing 90 million JPY from two investors.

Korean Air will largely increase flights for Japan after October 2022, expecting to restart two-way traffic between Japan and South Korea in earnest, resuming Fukuoka and Sapporo services.

Japan and Spain signed a memorandum for mutual tourism cooperation on September 22 2022, focusing on five priorities including local tourism and sustainable tourism as new viewpoints.

JTB Communication Design and Terra Motors agreed to a business partnership to establish a sustainable EV-charging and tourism infrastructure and a tourism platform to provide tourist information and services in the neighborhood.

Resuming three flights a week between Haneda and Sydney with A330-300 (28 business class seats and 260 economy class seats) on September 13, Qantas Airways is restarting tourism promotion activities in Japan in earnest.

JAL will serve ‘Sustainable Charter Flight’ on the Haneda-Naha route on November 18 2022, realizing ‘practical zero CO2 flight’ with A350-900.