Digital

Airbnb Japan donated 150 million jPY to Japan Kominka (old Japanese-style house) Association, enriching ‘Historical Homes' category in Japan. The Association plans to support up to 5 million JPY each for renovation of 30 houses nationwide.

Veltra and Asoview!, Japanese leading local experience booking platforms, signed a strategic business partnership to send customers reciprocally and support their business partners for DX.

HIS signed a business partnership with ‘MyAnimeList,’ one of the largest Japanese animation or manga community in the world to create and offer animation or manga-related travel tours in Web 3.0 space.

Hong Kong-based local experience booking platform ‘Klook' have begun selling ‘Klook Pass Tokyo & Tokyo Subway Ticket’ combining activities in Tokyo and one-day pass for 13 subway lines in Tokyo.

30% of all respondents in Japan knew what NFT is. Only 3.2% own NFT. The most popular category was ‘sports’ with 41.2%, followed by ‘animation or manga’ with 39.2% and ‘music or entertainment’ with 34%.

JTB has developed ‘JTB Data Connect HUB’ connecting property management system (PMS) for accommodation with a variety of business support solutions.

Tokyo Metro has begun selling a set of one-day passes on Amazon since November 29 2022 as its first year-around online ticket sales.

Navitime Japan, a Japan’s leading navigation solution provider, says ‘Japan Travel by NAVITIME’ have increased rapidly in September and October 2022. Searches by users in Asia particularly grew, and Hokkaido, Yamanashi and Oita were more searched.

Japan Culture and Technology (J-CAT) recently launched a local experience booking platform ‘Otonami’ listing a variety of high quality tour contents.

Rakuten Travel, a Japanese leading OTA, has released ‘Sustainable Icon’ to introduce sustainable efforts by hotels and ryokans on its booking platform　and give ‘Sustainable Travel Badge’ to them.

Local experience booking platform of Japan ‘Asoview’ and Hong Kong-based travel booking platform ‘Klook’ signed a strategic business partnership. On ‘Urakata Series,’ an Asoview’s SaaS-based service for tourism operators, Klook’s offering products are offered.

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.

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.’

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sumitomo Mitsui Card, a leading credit card of Japan, will begin providing its cashless payment data to Tourism Forecast Platform, enabling users to analyze consumption behaviors of domestic and foreign travelers.