News

Shinichi Inoue, ANA President & CEO, talked about what ANA values i in a time of uncertainty after the pandemic at an interview with Travel Voice. One of the reasons for survival from the pandemic crisis was ANA's start-up spirit, he said.

Both ANA and JAL have had more bookings on domestic flights than a year ago and have recovered international flights bookings to 65 to 70% of 2019.

Air Japan, a new ANA group brand, has decided to start a ‘hybrid’ airline business with launch of six flights a week between Narita and Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi Airport) on February 9 2024.

TOYOTA Motor has started a campaign to experience ‘Ele-Work,’ a new telework style, together with ADDress, a subscription-based multi-place living solution provider.

JAL, Nokyo Tourist and Loyalty Marketing will jointly plan and sell pilot tours of an experience-typed Workcation program, including farm working or planting tree, for corporations in Bihoro Town, Hokkaido.

online shopping expenditure by a household with two or more persons was 22,227 JPY in May 2023. Online travel expenditure was 4.804 JPY, nominally 48.2% more than a year ago and higher than 4,771 JPY in August 2019.

Mizuho, a mega bank of Japan, Mizuho China and Trip.com signed a strategic partnership agreement to address rise in quality in tourism industries of China and Japan from a long-term perspective.

Rieko Nakayama, Executive Vice President at Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), explained the current inbound travel market situation and JNTO's Inbound Marketing Strategy.

The 4th ‘Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS) 2023’ with a theme of ‘Travel revolution takes off’ will be held at Fibes in Sevilla, Spain for three days from October 18 to 20 2023. For Travel Voice audiences, 50% discount is offered.

‘Leisure White Paper 2023' finds that 63.9% of Japanese answered that they put an priority more on leisure than on work. The highest ratio of leisure activity participation was seen in ‘domestic travel’ with 42.8%, 10 % higher than 2021.

JAL will launch daily flights between Haneda and Doha with Boeing 787-9 in the summer of 2024, expecting to carry transit passengers from Doha to major cities in partnership with Qatar Airways, an oneworld member.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers were 703,300 in June 2023, which still remained a 53.8% reduction compared to June 2019.

The number of international visitors in Japan in June 2023 was 2,073,300, the first more than 2 million a month since the pandemic happened. The largest source market was still South Korea with 545.100 visitors

Reno Wang, General Manager APAC at Hopper, who visited Japan to join WiT Japan & North Asia, talked about its BtoB strategy in APAC including Japan. How does Hooper enter the Japanese market?

Word-of-mouth analysis TrustYou has begun providing ‘response AI,’ a new function for accommodation to generate responses to word-of-mouths from guests automatically.

56% of all Japanese respondents (76% globally) said that they want to do more sustainable travel in the next year, but only 22% said that they do not care about additional cost, which is much lower than 43% globally.

Combination of the Airporter’s baggage delivery system with an airline’s online check-in system allows a traveler to deliver baggage from a hotel and to pick it up at an arrival airport in a foreign country.

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan (MAFF) launched ‘Farm Stay Promotion Plan’ with a goal of 7 million guest nights by 2025.

Jalan Research Center survey finds that the most-satisfied prefecture for tourism was Oita, higher than 10th last year. Ishikawa is the most-satisfied prefecture for local foods, and Okinawa in local hospitality.

the total number of guest nights in May 2023 (provisionally) was up 36.2% year on year to 50.1 million. International guest nights recovered to a 7.8% reduction to 9 million compared to May 2019.