JTB has forecasted that Japanese travelers in the summer holiday period 2016 (July 15 to August 31) may reduce by 0.7% year on year to 77.45 million in total. The expected total consists of 74.85 million travelers in Japan (-1.0%) and 2.6 million overseas travelers (+7.4%). The positive forecast in the overseas travel market mainly result from stronger yen and zero fuel surcharges.
The average travel expenses are forecasted at 33,700 yen a traveler in Japan (-2.9%) and at 216,300 yen an overseas traveler (-14%). Travel consumption is expected to reduce by 4.5% to 3,085 billion yen in total, which consist of 2,523 billion yen for travel in Japan (-3.9%) and 562.4 billion yen (-7.5%).
JTB has analyzed that working environments including job creation and summer bonus improve, while there are still anxieties for the future among consumers. According to questionnaires about travel expenses, the ratio of ‘plan to increase expenses’ was down 1.2 points to 14.8% compared to a year ago.
The booking status of JTB overseas package tour products finds steady increases in bookings for Thailand (+5.9%) and Taiwan (+6.6%) and recoveries of bookings for China (+12.1%), Korea (+29.4%) and Hong Kong (+8.9%) from the last year’s results. Bookings for Spain and Portugal in Europe and for other long-haul destinations, such as North America (+4.2%), Australia (+16.7%) and New Zealand (+18.2%) healthily increased. The busiest days for departures will be August 13 for long-haul destinations, August 10 for middle-haul destinations and August 14 for short-haul destinations.
The table below shows overseas traveler estimations by destination:
In the travel in Japan market, travelers using cars including rental cars reduce slightly, though the ratio accounts for 70% or higher of the total. Those using railways are up 2.8 points to 23.8%, boosted by open of new Shinkansen routes and popularity of tourist trains. Those using flights are down 4.1 points to 14.5%.
Popular destinations include Hokkaido, Tohoku and Kansai. The ratio of staying in parent homes or friends’ houses is up 5.5 points to 27.3%, which may represent the save-money trend.
The table below shows domestic traveler estimations by destination:
In Japanese
