Travel Sectors

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yahoo Data Solution Service will launch a new BtoB tool ‘DS. INSIGHT Trend’ as a new function on ‘DS,. INSIGHT' to visualize rising topics or trends from about 9 billion sorts of searched keywords a year and GPS data from about approved 10 million users.

Royal Road Ginza, a JTB luxury travel retailer, ties up with Rikkyo University Wellness Research Institute to work together for creation of new wellness travel products. The first product focuses on ‘well-sleep’ and ‘onsen’ in Kamakura and Tsukiji.

Shinichi Inoue, ANA President & CEO, talked about what ANA values i in a time of uncertainty after the pandemic at an interview with Travel Voice. One of the reasons for survival from the pandemic crisis was ANA's start-up spirit, he said.

Both ANA and JAL have had more bookings on domestic flights than a year ago and have recovered international flights bookings to 65 to 70% of 2019.

Air Japan, a new ANA group brand, has decided to start a ‘hybrid’ airline business with launch of six flights a week between Narita and Bangkok (Suvarnabhumi Airport) on February 9 2024.

JAL, Nokyo Tourist and Loyalty Marketing will jointly plan and sell pilot tours of an experience-typed Workcation program, including farm working or planting tree, for corporations in Bihoro Town, Hokkaido.

Rieko Nakayama, Executive Vice President at Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), explained the current inbound travel market situation and JNTO's Inbound Marketing Strategy.

The 4th ‘Tourism Innovation Summit (TIS) 2023’ with a theme of ‘Travel revolution takes off’ will be held at Fibes in Sevilla, Spain for three days from October 18 to 20 2023. For Travel Voice audiences, 50% discount is offered.