Japan Bound

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) announced ‘Policies for sustainable tourism and contributions to SDGs, focusing on preservation and development of ‘environment,’ ‘culture’ and ‘economy’ in local communities.

More than 90% of Japanese tour operators for international visitors cut jobs, and 40% have cut more than half of jobs in the pandemic, which will possibly be a big hurdle to catch a recovery wave, Japan Inbound Media Consortium (JIMC)'s survey says.

‘The Responsible Traveler,’ a series of manners eduction movies produced by Dentsu Tech for Japan Tourism Agency, featuring humorous performances by five Samurai and Karate Masters, won Intermedia-globe Gold for 2021 World Media Festival.

The first Playbook for stakeholders is unveiled to show principles in order of time, before your travel, entering Japan, at the games and leaving Japan, and also what you have to ensure all the time, including ‘Do not use public transport unless given permission.'

Odawara Tourism Association in Kanagawa Prefecture has started selling online tour ‘Online Ninja Experience (ONE),' expecting that Ninja will be a tourism content to attract international travelers after the pandemic.

The number of international arrivals in Japan was just 4,115,900 in 2020, which was one tenth of the government’s goal of 40 million for 2020. In December 2020 only, international arrivals were down 97.7% year on year to 58,700.

The Japanese government has decided to suspend business and residence tracks between Japan and 11 designated countries and regions until February 7 2021 to prevent a new variant of COVID-19 from flowing into Japan.

The total number of Japanese guest nights was down 15.7% to 34.2 million in November 2020, improving from a 35.2% reduction in October 2020 clearly because of ‘Go To Travel,' and international guest nights increased from 270,000 in October 2020 to 440,000 due to the limited ease of the entry rules.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) surveyed the relevance between inbound travelers’ needs and spread of COVID-19 in Taiwan and Hong Kong as short-haul markets and U.K. and Australia as long-haul markets, giving insights toward reopening of the inbound travel market in the future.

Japan will suspend new entries from all of foreign countries and regions until January 31 2021 to avoid possible inclusion of new variants of COVID-19, and the 14-days quarantine exemption for short-term business travelers will also be suspended.

The number of international arrivals in Japan was down 97.7% year on year to 56,700 in November 2020, doubling from the previous month (28,000 arrivals). Arrivals from China still decreased by 97.6% year on year to 18,100, but largely increasing from 4,500 in October.

JNTO Hanoi Office’s survey finds that about 70% of local travel agents intend to restart selling travel in Japan by the next cherry blossom season, but 82% answered that ‘lifting of travel restrictions in both Japan and Vietnam’ will be required.

The Japanese government has decided to extend 'Go To Travel' to the end of June next year from originally January 31 2021 and also to receive small group inbound travelers step by step toward Tokyo Olympics next summer.

Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau (OCVB) targets 3.7 million arrivals in FY2020 and 6.7 million domestic arrivals and 300,000 international arrivals in FY2021, supposing that the current COVID-19 condition including travel restrictions, will improve.

The number of international arrivals in Japan was down 98.9% year on year to 27,400 in October 2020. Visitors from five markets accounted for half of the total including the most 6,200 from Vietnam (-86.7%).

The number of international arrivals in Japan was down 99.4% year on year to 13,700 in September 2020, exceeding 10,000 for the first time in the past half a year. Arrivals from Singapore was 30 only even though the business track started.

The number of international cruise travelers to Japan was down 12.2% year on year to 2.15 million in 2019 because of a decrease in cruises departing from China, and port calls in Japan also down 2.2% to 2,866.

The total number of guest nights was down 58.4% year on year to 26.3 million in August 2020 (preliminary report). The monthly result of Japanese guest nights worsened from a 47.9% reduction in July 2020 with no positive effect yet from Go To Travel campaign.

Akiko Yoshida, new Executive Senior Vice President at JNTO, talked about what JNTO can do now amid no inbound travel demand. Looking at the future, JNTO helps local communities create higher quality tourism contents.

The inbound travel market of Japan continued having a hard time, as international arrivals were down 99.7% year on year to 8,700 in August 2020. Due to travel restrictions, the almost zero results have been seen since April.