JTB has forecasted that Japanese overseas travelers in this year's summer holiday period (July 15 to August 31) may increase by 3.4% year on year to 2.73 million, the second most travelers ever. Travelers in Japan are expected to increase by 0.7% to 74.6 million. The total is expected to increase by 0.8% to 77.3 million travelers.
Travel consumption is estimated at 3,227 billion yen in total (+5.2%), which consists of 2,566 billion yen for travel in Japan (+2.8%) and 660.6 billion yen for overseas travel (+15.7%). The average travel budget per capita is estimated at 34,400 yen for travel in Japan (+2.1%) and 242,000 yen for overseas travel (+11.9%).
The JTB survey finds that the ratio of people who want to spend more was 18.3%, 3.5 higher points than a year ago, while the ratio of people who want to spend less was 24.3%, 2.9 lower points than a year ago.
The average bonus payment of major companies for this summer is lower than the previous year for the first time in the last five years, however the domestic economic condition is going along on the right track, and the stock price is stable. Also, the employment rate in May 2017 was higher than the previous peak (July 1990). Those seem to be psychological factors to encourage Japanese to spend more for travel in this summer, according to JTB.
The table below shows mind changes of travel spending:
The busiest days for overseas travels will be August 11 and 12 according to the JTB package tour booking status. Bookings for Asia (+2.0%) and Europe (+8.0%) increased. Long-haul destinations like Northern Europe, Germany, Spain, Canada, Oceania are especially preferred due to better holiday sequence in the middle of August.
The busiest days for travels in Japan will be from August 11 and 15. For purposes of traveling in Japan, the largest ratio was 19.8% for homecoming, followed by 13.4% for going to theme parks or leisure parks. The extension of the LCC network encourages travelers to choose flights as public transportation, as the ratio was up 2.8% to 17.3% in this summer. Regarding accommodation, the ratio of travelers choosing hotels was up 3.5% to 46.2%, followed by ryokan (26.4%) and family's or friend's home (26.6%).
