JTB has forecasted that Japanese travelers are expected to reduce by 2.1% year on year to 29.9 million in total in the 2016-2017 New Year holiday period (December 23 2016 to January 3 2017). The forecast is about 640,000 fewer travelers than the record-high result a year ago.
The total consists of 646,000 overseas travelers (+3.3%) and 29.3 million travelers in Japan (-2.2%). Japanese overseas travelers are expected to result in the first year-on-year growth in the past three years.
Travel consumption may reduce by 10.4% to 1,039 billion yen in total, comprising 133.7 billion yen for overseas travels (-1.5%) and 905.4 billion yen for travels in Japan (-11.6%). The average expenses per traveler are estimated at 207,000 yen for overseas travel (-4.7%) and at 39,000 yen for travel in Japan (-9.6%).
JTB has analyzed that the reduction of travel consumption may resulted from concerns about economic and social sense of uncertainty. Also, many people will travel for three consecutive holidays from December 23 to 25 before the New Year holiday period begins.
According to the JTB’s questionnaires, the ratio of travel expense of 20,000 yen or less accounts for 49.4% of the total, 6.3 higher points than a year ago. The ratio of respondents who travel to longer-haul destination than a year ago accounts for 5.2%, and shorter-haul destination for 1.9%. The ratio of reducing travel days accounts for 1.3%, and increasing travel days for 3.2%.
In travel in Japan market, the most popular transportation is car (66.9%), but the share is down 2.1 points because of higher gas price. The shares of other transportations are 14.2% for JR Shinkansen (+1.5 points), 8.1% for highway buses (+3.7 points), 8.1% for legacy carriers (-0.8 points) and 1.4% for LCCs (+0.8 points).
