News

Kenji Sunada, founder and CEO of KabuK Style talks about his ambition on fintech-based travel subscription services ‘HafH’ for accommodation and flight. He said, "We are committed to change the world with a new business model.”

Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition begins driving ‘Tourism + EXPO’ efforts in earnest to spread effects of the EXPO nationwide. Nobuhiko Hohokabe, Executive Director of Local Community and Tourism Department, talked about ‘Tourism + EXPO.'

HIS has received 20 times more overseas travel bookings during this coming Golden Week holiday period. The most-booked destination is Seoul, followed by Taipei and Honolulu.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers were 694,300 in March 2023, approximately 150,000 more travelers than the previous month, but still 64% down compared to March 2019.

The number of international visitors in Japan in March 2023 was record-high1,817,500 since the pandemic. Visitors from U.S. (203,000) and Australia (45,200) exceeded the results in March 2019.

Spending in Japan by international travelers for the first quarter of 2023 was estimated at 1.01 trillion JPY. Shopping cost largely reduced from 413.5 billion JPY to 241.7 billion JPY.

Sales of 43 major travel companies increased by 38.6% to 225.5 billion JPY in total in February 2023 compared to the same month of 2019. Overseas travel sales amounted 57.3 billion JPY, though the reduction rate improved from 70.4% in January 2023 to 63.1%.

Okinawa Prefecture drew up ‘Okinawa Tourism Promotion Roadmap’ to become ‘a sustainable destination to be selected in the world' with KPIs of local communities’ happiness of 90%, tourism revenue of 1.2 trillion JPY.

JAL Group LCC ZIPAIR Tokyo has begun operating zero CO2 flights on the Narita-Honolulu route on April 1 2023, the world-first zero CO2 operation through a year on a particular route.

Airbnb Japan signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with Kansai Tourism Bureau for home-sharing-based tourism promotions targeting international visitors for Osaka Kansai EXPO 2025.

The Japanese government approved a IR development plan submitted by Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City to develop an integrated resort with an international convention center, hotels and casino in the artificial island ‘Yumeshima’ of Osaka Bay in autumn or winter 2029.

Japan Adventure Tourism Organization (JATO) launched Adventure Tourism Academy with JAL and JTB to develop adventure tourism in Japan, working together to develop human resources and promotional activities.

JR West, a Japanese railway company in western Japan, has begun offering a share space booking and payment platform service ‘+ PLACE.' About 400 bookable places are available for the service in the beginning.

Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai will be a complete cashless event without accepting cash payment. its original e-money payment ‘EXPO 2025 Digital Wallet’ will be introduced by the end of March 2024.

JTB has forecasted 24.7 million travelers in total during this year’s Golden Week holiday period from April 25 to May 5, 24.5 million domestic travelers (2% more than 2019) and 200,000 outbound travelers from Japan (78.5% fewer than 2019).

With a three-jabs vaccination certificate, Chinese travelers entering Japan are no longer required PCR-negative certificate 72 hours before departure, and it will be lifted completely when the legal infection status of COVID-19 is lowered to Level 5 in May.

Iriomote Island in Okinawa Prefecture, a remote island registered as UNESCO World Heritage, drew up a new tourism management plan to restrict visitors up to 1,200 a day or up to 330,000 a year.

Japan Tourism Agency instructs how local tourism players should promote digital transformation in four pillars, showing the future vision, the current challenges, how to solve issues and also KPIs in FY2027.

Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) launched a year-round promotion project to boost outbound travel demand, including social media posting campaigns and also a financial support for acquisition of new passports.

Expedia's the most-searched destinations by Japanese consumers for this coming Golden Week finds that six overseas destinations, such as Taipei, Bangkok or Seoul, are ranked among top 10.