News

Digital Agency of Japan will integrate ‘My SOS,’ a health certificate app, into ‘Visit Japan Web’ on November 1 2022 to make faster immigration possible.

Sales of 43 major travel companies increased by 141.9% year on year to 194.2 billion JPY in total in August 2022. Sales in overseas travel were up 521.8% year on year to 34.3 billion JPY due to gradual restart of overseas travel package tours.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in September 2022 was 206,500, which were the first over 200,000 a month in the pandemic. Compared to August 2019 (2,272,883 arrivals), the result remained a 90.9% decrease.

JAL will reduce oneway fuel surcharges on its international flights for two months from December 2022, reducing it for Hawaii from 37,400 JPY to 30,500JPY or for long-haul from 57,200 JPY to 47,000 JPY.

ANA is revamping ‘ANA Mileage Club App’ to a super app by installing mini apps for a variety of daily life services, accelerating it to 'super app' with a concept of ‘living with miles.’

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan lowered COVID-19 travel warning worldwide to LEVEL 1 (Be careful of traveling) on October 19 2022.

JR East, a Japanese railway company covering eastern Japan, has begun selling NFT (non-fungible token) ) station name signs, celebrating the 150th anniversary of birth of the Japan’s first railway.

Universal Studios Japan (USJ) and Ant Group signed a corporate marketing partnership contract to introduce Alipay+ payment service in the park, expecting that the partnership will raise payment conveniences for visitors to Japan from Asia.

ANA Holdings revealed that international flight bookings for 7 days between September 23 and 30 for flights in January 2023 doubled in point of sales in Japan and increased by five times in foreign point of sales .

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered that a new Tourism Promotion Plan as a public-private strategy should be drawn up by the end of March next year, especially eying Osaka Kansai EXPO in 2025.

A nationwide travel discount program began on October 11 2022 to boost domestic travel demand, but Several OTAs stopped selling the qualified products on the opening day because of no more availabilities.

The total number of Japanese guest nights in August 2022 (provisionally) was up 49.8% year on year to 46 million, which were 14.5% fewer guests nights than the same month in 2019, and the occupancy rate was 50.1% overall, higher than 47.8% in July 2022.

Online shopping spending a Japanese household in July 2022 was up 20.4% year on year to 21,940 JPY a month, and travel-related spending was up 2.4 times to 3,595 JYP a household.

ANA began flying special livery ‘ANA Green Jet’.' The first green Boeing 787 is operated for scheduled Haneda-San Francisco flights on October 5 2022, followed by the second one on some domestic routes in November.

Payn, a Japanese startup, has released bata ‘Payn’ to automatize a billing service for hotels or restaurants which have troubles with recouping cancellation fees, financing 90 million JPY from two investors.

Passport renewal in Japan will be made possible online on March 27 2023. A Japanese passport holder will no longer visit an application window for passport renewal procedure.

Korean Air will largely increase flights for Japan after October 2022, expecting to restart two-way traffic between Japan and South Korea in earnest, resuming Fukuoka and Sapporo services.

Japan and Spain signed a memorandum for mutual tourism cooperation on September 22 2022, focusing on five priorities including local tourism and sustainable tourism as new viewpoints.

JTB Communication Design and Terra Motors agreed to a business partnership to establish a sustainable EV-charging and tourism infrastructure and a tourism platform to provide tourist information and services in the neighborhood.

Searches for travel in Japan on major OTAs have been growing since the Japanese government announced the remaining travel restrictions on foreigners would be lifted on October 11 2022.