Travel Sectors

HIS has started selling ‘LIVING TRAVEL’ to meet consumers’ needs of overseas Workcation in Honolulu, Bali, Bangkok, Cairns and Amsterdam departing from Japan after November 2020.

Japanese pioneer travel magazine AB-ROAD will terminate on March 31 2021. The operator Recruit Lifestyle explains that the termination results from recent changes of customers’ needs and business environment.

This year’s Tourism EXPO Japan in Okinawa will be held for four days between October 29 and November 1 2020, organizing both in live and online for business meetings and international conferences amid COVID-19. Next year it will go to Osaka again.

Local bus and tour operator in Utsunomiya, Tochigi Prefecture launches a new package product incorporating PCR testing in tie-ups with a local clinic to ensure safer travel and confidence in traveling.

KNT-CT has started selling ‘’E’Vacation,’ an innovative product using electric vehicle (EV) in cooperation with Nissan in Kanagawa and Shizuoka, taking advantage of the Nissan’s car sharing service ‘NISSAN e-share mobi.’

Sales of 48 major travel companies unprecedentedly reduced by 87.4% year on year to 52.2 billion JPY in total in July 2020, but the monthly reduction rate, however, improved from 97.6% in May and 92.9% in June.

JTB develops a new product to tour in English in Japan with an authorized interpreter guide, targeting students who have lost international studies or senior people who want to learn English in travel, for example.

HIS continued struggling for a survive from the pandemic crisis, as it considerably reduced transaction volume by 97% year on year to 1,150 million JPY in July 2020.

To raise travelers' confidences at an airport, JAL has introduced a contactless self-checkin kiosk at Haneda Airport as a trial in the beginning. You can check in with a finger in the air 3 cm off the display.

Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau (OCVB) has revised downward its annual visitor forecast for 2020 from originally 3.91 million (announced on July 29) to 3.61 million mainly because of more group travel cancelations than expected. In the worse case, Okinawa will lose 511 billion JPY in tourism spending.

ANA and JAL continued suffering low domestic passenger demand during the mid-August summer holiday period because of re-spread of COVID-19 , resulting in the load factor of 30% range.

JTB offers VR-based ‘Virtual School Trip 360’ combining a 360-degree image tour with realtime communication with local people in order to give a school trip opportunity to schools suspending their trips amid COVID-19.

The JTB Report 2020, analyzing the outbound travel market of Japan in 2019, illustrates major reasons for the record-breaking result, and some of the trends are likely to continue even after COVID-19 ends.

In preparation for restart of overseas business travel, HIS has launched a support travel plan for travelers to Bangkok, offering a package of the COVID-19-related solutions including test opportunity, self-quarantine hotel and airport transfer.

OYO Japan is launched, integrated OYO LIFE and OYO Hotels into 'One OYO Japan' brand, to raise its awareness in the Japanese market.

JAL ended the 1st quarter of FY2020 ended Kune 30 2020 with net loss of 93.7 billion JPY due to unprecedented cancellations and reductions of flights amid the COVID-19 crisis, expecting passenger revenue will reduce by 55% to 65% for the full fiscal year.

Presidents of NTA, JTB and KNT-CT talked about the future travel at JATA Online Travel Mart 2020 Forum, expecting that overseas travel will be resumed as soon as possible. They discussed demand decentralization, digitalization, workcation and so forth.

ANA Holdings posted operating loss of 159 billion JPY and net loss of 109 billion JPY for the first quarter of FY2021 ending June 30 2020, unprecedentedly reducing both domestic and international passengers under the COVID-19 crisis.

JTB is exploiting Workcation demands in the New Normal age, developing innovative contents in partnership with local governments and communities, amid change of working and life styles in Japan.

HIS has started selling overseas package tour ‘Social Travel’ series with thorough precautions against COVID-19, which will be performed after October 2020 following lifting of the current restrictions in both Japan and destinations.