Japan Tourism Agency reported that travel transactions of 49 major travel agents totaled 440 billion JPY (-1.7%) in December 2016. The monthly total consisted of 162 billion JPY for outbound travel (-2.8%), 15 billion JPY for inbound travel (+6.2%) and 263.2 billion JPY for travel in Japan (-1.4%).
Annual total amounted to 5,772 billion JPY, comprising 1,992 billion JPY for outbound travel, 190.8 billion yen for inbound travel and 3,589 billion JPY for travel in Japan.
For outbound travel, out of the top five travel agents (15 JTB Group companies, five H.I.S. group companies, three Hankyu Travel Group companies, eight KNT-CT Group companies and NTA), KNT-CT moved up to 4th, and NTA moved down to 5th.
For inbound travel, among the top five travel agents (15 JTB Group companies, five H.I.S. Group companies, eight KNT-CT Group companies, Tobu Top Tours and NTA), Rakuten moved up to 5th. All of the companies except JTB increased transactions by double-digit year on year.
For travel in Japan, among the top five companies (15 JTB Group companies, eight KNT-CT Group companies, NTA, Rakuten and ANA Sales), KNT-CT resulted in 15.1% decrease in transactions in December 2016. Rakuten did better business through 2016.
Transactions of package tour brand products totaled 122.2 billion JPY in December 2016 (-6.5%) with 2,730,708 customers in total (-7.2%). The total comprised 50.2 billion JPY (-11.1%) with 238,818 customers (-6.9%) for outbound travel, 504 million JPY (-7.7%) with 34,320 customers (-1.7%) for inbound travel and 71.5 billion JPY (-3.0%) with 2,457,570 customers (-7.3%) for travel in Japan.
According to hearings to travel companies, the outbound travel market was affected by worse holiday sequences in the New Year period than a year ago and continuous anxiety about global uncertainty. In the inbound travel market, travel companies dealt with more visitors from East Asia and Southeast Asia. The travel in Japan market was influenced by reduction of travelers to Hokkaido due to heavy snow.
