News

HIS launched a new accommodation booking platform ‘WOW+,’ which lists unique properties only, giving users search opportunities from experience keywords.

Jeff Moomaw, Vice President Asia Pacific at Delta Air Lines, revealed that the airline will increase seat capacity in APAC by 35% in 2024. The airline continues investing to improvement of customer experiences.

The number of Japanese outbound travelers was down 36.2% to 978,900 in February 2024 compared to the same month 2019.

The number of international visitors to Japan in February 2024 was up 7.1% to 2,788,000 compared to the same month of 2019, which were record-high on a single month basis after the pandemic.

Ibaraki Prefecture and Hong Kong-based experience booking platform Klook signed MOU to work together for inbound travel promotions.

Green Destinations Top 100 Story Awards selected Hakone Town, Kanagawa Prefecture, as top in Business & Marketing and Miyazu City, Kyoto Prefecture as 3rd in Culture & Tradition.

Airbnb Japan forms the Home-Sharing Loan framework with financial service provider Oriental Corporation (Orico) and unused house distribution platform ‘Akatsuki Navi.’

Uber Japan partners with Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture, for a ride-sharing service by a local government. 14 local residents who have passed training courses by Daiichi Koutsu Sangyo initially started the service as drivers.

‘JTB BÓKUN,’ an activity booking management system,’ has completed API integration with ‘byFood.com' for inbound travelers to Japan, enabling food tour providers on byFood.com to make their operations more effective.

Airport Limousine has started selling e-tickets on about 400 foreign-based OTAs trough API connections with sales channels on e-ticket booking platform Linktivity.

JTB Global Marketing & Travel has deveped two new tour routes of ‘Hokkaido AdveNature Route’ and ‘Northern Japan Discovery Route’ in Tohoku in SUNRISE TOURS for inbound travelers.

NAVITIME Japan has launched linkage of ‘Japan Travel NAVITIME,’ a navigation app for inbound travelers, with Uber taxi app. A taxi can be dispatched without re-inputting riding location and a destination.

Bankruptcies of ski resorts in Japan increased from three in 2022 to seven in 2023, which were the most bankruptcies in the last decade due to unprecedented warm winter and shortage of snow.

Travel + Leisure has acquired the Yushi Chikumakan resort in Chikuma City, in the Nagano prefecture of Japan, and will rebrand the property to ‘Club Wyndham Chikumakan Nagano.’

American Airlines will launch daily New York (JFK)-Haneda services with the Boeing 777-200 on June 28 2024, enhancing the joint venture with JAL, expanding to up to 17 flights a day including 10 flights for Haneda a day.

The number of general passport issues was up 2.8 times year on year to 3,401,533 in 2023. The total of valid passports as of the end of 2023 reached 21.5 million, about 240,000 fewer passports than a year ago.

The number of inbound cruise travelers was 356,000 in 2023, which was 14% of the peak in 2017. The total number of cruise part calls in Japan increased by 2.5 times year on year to 1,854, which recovered to 63% of the peak in 2018.

42.2% of Japanese people recognized what dual-pricing is, and 29.4% agreed to it, and 28.9% fairly agreed to it. 39.2% answered that dual-pricing encourages you to travel in Japan.

This year's cherry blossom season is expected to start blooming first in Tokyo on March 18, according to Weathernews. Full blooming will be earlier than usual nationwide.

No.1 Japanese Net Promoter Score (NPS) OTA is ikyu.com, followed by Rakuten Travel and the Expedia. ikyu.com gets high scores in higher products than expected or imagined and high-quality travel.