Digital

The average expenditure on internet by a household increased by 10.8% year on year to 21,975 JPY in April 2023. Travel expenditure on internet was up 58.7% to 4,402 JPY, close to 4,771 JPY in August 2019.

Travel-tech international conference ‘WiT Japan & North Asia’ will be held in Tokyo on July 5 and 6 2023. Kei Shibata (Venture Republic CEO) and Aya Aso (SAVVY Collective CEO), Executive Committee members, talked about what speakers are expected to discuss in the event.

Arival, the in-destination international conference organizer announced six key trends in APAC, such as acceleration of online booking, photogenic experiences or the return of the outbound travel from China.

The 8th ‘Digital Travel APAC,’ a travel-tech international conference specializing in APAC, will kick off for three days from August 14 2023, hosted by World Business Research (WBR). Travel professionals will take about what is the future travel in APAC.

ANA NEO, a ANA Group company, opened ‘ANA GranWhale NFT MarketPlace’ to sell its original and unique NFT products as ‘ANA NFT Collection.’

The latest JTB survey on DX finds that 43% of DMOs or local governments want to use TikTok or GoogleMyBuisness as tools to delivery information.

atta, a Japanese AI-based travel booking service startup. became bankrupt with total debts of about 130 million JPY. Up-front investment for the system development weighted the business management.

International travel-tech conference ‘WiT Japan’ will be held face-to-face in Westin Tokyo on July 5 and 6 2023. Early-bird tickets will be available by May 12.

JTB has decided to invest to Tablecross, an operator of one-stop food platform ‘byFood.com' for international travelers to Japan, in order to promote gastronomy tourism.

TOKI AIR, a Nigata Airport-based startup regional airline, has developed ‘TOKI AIR NFT Project’ to launch a fan community ‘CLUB TOKI’ and to sell NFT arts.

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.”

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.

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.

Ethan Lin, Hong Kong-based local experience booking platform ‘Klook’ CEO and Co-founder, recently visited Japan to talk about the current market trend of inbound travel to Japan.

TrustYou revealed that Booking.com collected the most word-of-mouth postings with a share of 34% in Japan, followed by Google with 21%.

Veltra, a Japanese leading experience and tour booking platform, and Tiqets have agreed to extend the strategic partnership, including transition of business operation by Tiqets in Japan to Linktivity, a subsidiary of Veltra.

Kansai Tourism Bureau signed MOU on strategic partnership with Mastercard to accelerate digital payment in 10 prefectures in the Kansai area toward the Expo 2025 Osaka Kansai.

Japan Travel and Tourism Association opened a new tourism information website ‘JAPAN 47 GO’ containing about 110,000 local tourism attractions and experiences in 1,741 local regions nationwide.

ANA will integrate its domestic passenger service system into Amadeus Altea Passenger Service Systemto maximize seamless services for all passengers on a single platform. The integration will be in progress from FY2025 to FY2026.