News

tripla, a Japanese IT solution provider for accommodation, has raised capacity of its multi-language AI chatbot service ‘tripla Bot’ through a linkage with ChatGPT.

J.D. Power Japan ‘airline customer satisfaction survey 2023’ finds that the most-satisfied airline is Star Flyer. he most-affected factor to customer satisfaction is ‘flight crew’ with the ratio of 27%.

A Hawaii State Legislature delegate of a total of 13 members recently visited Japan to deepen economic partnership and friendship with Japan. They talked about the current condition in wildfire-damaged Maui.

The first meeting of a cross-ministries conference to discuss prevention or control of over-tourism was held on September 6 to sum up effective measures in this autumn. At the first meeting, the members shared the current challenges in tourism.

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) has requested a budget of 24.1 billion JPY for FY2024 starting April 1 2024, 2.2 times more budget than FY2023. For programs to solve the labor shortage issue particularly in the hospitality industry, 400 million JPY, 2.67 times more than FY2023 have been requested.

HIS, one of the leading travel companies in Japan, will launch a new subsidiary in Nairobi, Kenya in late September this year to provide travelers with accommodation services in Africa.

ANA will begin operating all of 14 Narita-Honolulu flights a week (two flights a day) with the A380 ‘FLYING HONU’ on December 6 2013, offering the most seats on the route ever including even before COVID-19.

Narita International Airport international flight passengers reached 2.25 million in July 2023, exceeding 2 million for two months in a row. Foreigner passengers were up 6.8 times year on year to 1.44 million.

Tetsuo Saito, Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, revealed that Japan Tourism Agency will set up a meeting to discuss prevention or control of over-tourism to reveal solution plans in this coming autumn.

Alibaba Japan launches a medical tourism service in Japan for Chinese travelers on the Alibaba Group cross-border EC platform ‘Tmall Global, on which Japanese medical companies or organizations open their official shops.

ANA will begin serving its 3rd 520-seats A380 ‘FLYING HONU’ on the Narita-Honolulu route on October 20 2023. Also, ANA will enhance its China network in accordance with restart of group travels from China.

JTB and trip.com have agreed to lunch a new joint venture to solve challenges of hospitality operators and local governments in the inbound travel market from Asia to Japan.

Japanticket, e-ticket solution provider for inbound travelers to Japan, is developing several trials of ‘Premium Gastronomy Tour’ using HONDA Motor-made business jet ‘HondaJet’ for high-value inbound travelers to Japan. Where did ‘Premium gastronomy tours’ idea come from?

The ratio of Japanese people using EC websites for shopping in 2022 was 83.6%, and 64.4% used it more than once in a month. Personalization or customization was more preferred than before.

Labor shortage is still serious in hospitality services in Kyoto City. 65.1% of all answers said fewer employees than pre-COVID-19, and about 40% of accommodation and restaurant operators said that they lost 20% or more employees.

the total amount of Japanese travel consumption was up 27.7% year on year to 5.6 trillion JPY in the 2nd quarter of 2023 (April to June 2023). Travel spending a travel per traveler was up 11% year on year to 41,875JPY, which were 14.6% more than even 2019.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers were 891,600 in July 2023, approximately 190,000 more travelers than the previous month, but the result still remained a 46.3% decrease compared to July 2019 (1,659,166 travelers).

The number of international arrivals in Japan in July 2023 was down 22.4% to 2,320,600 compared to the same month 2019. The total for the first seven months reached 13,032,900.

Indeed, a job hunting search platform, revealed that job-hunters for tourism-related jobs in Japan increased by 1.8 times in June 2023 compared to October 2022, when the nationwide travel support program started.

Rikkyo University, Hinomaru bus operator and Sky Hop Bus Marketing Japan has started selling ‘Neo Tokyo Tour,’ a nighttime sightseeing bus tour. The idea was created by Rikkyo University Tourism Department students in the fieldwork class.