Travel Sectors

‘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.

WiT Japan & North Aisa 2024 with a theme of ‘The Human Revolution’ on May 13 2024 particularly shared knowledge of how to use GenAI for travel.

14 UNIZO Holdings’ hotels in Japan will be renovated to Four Points Express by Sheraton. They will be the first Four Points Express by Sheraton brand in APAC.

85% of travel and hospitality business operators in Japan were forced to limit their operation hours due to labour shortage. The hospitality industry has struggled with their operations, such as reduce in operation days (51%).

JAL increased revenue by 20.1% year on year to 1652 billion yen for FY 2023 ended March 31 2024, 19.2% more than even FY2019, carrying 1.5 times more international flight passengers.

ANA Holdings considerably increased operating revenue for FY2023 ended March 31 2024 to 2,056 billion yen because of strong air travel demand after the pandemic. International passenger service revenue surpassed domestic passenger service revenue.

A stay in 400-years-old ‘Marugame Castle Experience’ in Kagawa Prefecture will be on sale at 1,265,000 JPY a night for two persons including one dinner and one breakfast.

ANA X, a ANA Group company, unveiled the TaaS (Travel as a Service) Platform concept for seamless travel on an smartphone app to expand an ANA economy zone by providing more opportunities to live or travel with accumulated miles.

Airbnb will contribute $1 million (about 153 million JPY) to a regional tourism exchange program between Japan and U.S, sending 15 to 20 tourism professionals from Japan to U.S.

ANA will begin serving complimentary in-flight internet access even to Business Class passengers on its international flights in this coming summer.

JTB, Asahi Breweries and Jidaiya, a rickshaw operator, worked together for a inbound travel program to tour cherry blossom spots in Asakusa by rickshaw. The program is to boost nighttime economy by inbound travelers.

JTB has estimated that the total number of Japanese travelers during this year’s Golden Week period (April 25 to May 5) will be up 1.8% to 23.3 million, including 520,000 outbound travelers, 67.7% more than a year ago.

Ministry of Justice of Japan has started issuing ‘digital nomad’ visa to a foreigner with annual income of 10 million JPY or more in about 50 visa waiver countries or regions

Japan Tourism Agency has selected 20 pioneer model areas and 51 general areas for prevention of over-tourism, such as ‘Niseko Model for usage of taxi’ in Kutchan, Hokkaido, ‘Equalization of crowd and ease of traffic jam’ in Hakone, Kanagawa.