News

The number of international visitors to Japan in November 2024 reached record-high 3,187,000 for November, totaled 33.4 million visitorsfor the first 11 months, already exceeding the annual record of 31.9 million in 2019.

GetYourGuide co-founders, Johannes Reck and Tao Tao talked about the Japanese market and partnership with suppliers, expecting that Japan continues being one of the most popular destination on its platform.

tripla, a Japanese IT solution provider for accommodation, has started offering a new connectivity hub function, allowing the accommodation reservation engine "tripla Book," which has been deployed mainly in Japan, to connect with overseas reservation management systems.

Kyoto City and DMO KYOTO opened a portal site ‘LINK! LINK! LINK!’ for Kyoto citizen as one of the efforts to increase public sympathy for tourism.

JR East will launch a corporate co-creation platform service in January 2025 that will link JR EAST digital pass Suica with digital services from various companies and other organizations to provide personalized services.

Institute fir Urban Strategy of The Mori Memorial Foundation announced Global Power City Index 2024 (GPCI 2024). Top city was London, followed by New York and Tokyo, but the gap between 2nd and 3rd was narrowed.

J.D. Power Japan announced the results of the hotel satisfaction survey 2024, and top 0f ‘upper up-scale' category is The Okura (top in F&B, room, price, facility and check-in/out), followed by Westin and Sheraton.

JAL and NEC demonstrated the ‘NEC Baggage Counting Solution,’ in which AI is used to automatically analyze the quantity and types of carry-on baggage, to avoid flight delay.

Okinawa-based ‘Nature Travel Japan’ was launched as a new destination management company (DMC). Under a brand name of ‘Japan Adventure Travel,’ five local DMCs partner to create adventure travel tours across Japan for inbound travelers.

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) has created new ‘Travel Etiquette’ and ‘Tourism Pictogram’ to raise awareness of tourist etiquette and recommended behavior.

JTB has forecasted that the number of Japanese travelers during this coming New Year holidays (December 23 2024 to January 3 2025) are expected to increase by 2% year on year to 28.5 million in total.

Canon Marketing Japan is sending stories about Japan Heritage certified by Agency for Cultural Affairs (ACA), posting short movies titled ‘Everyday Japan Heritage’ on ACA official SNS.

The survey about traveling with a dog in Japan shows 96.3% want to travel with their dogs, and 84.3% said that they want to travel with their dogs even though travel cost is higher.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) issued 20 kinds of ink painting NFTs featuring local landmarks in 10 regions as one of the efforts in Osaka Kansai EXPO 2025 promotions.

Uber will begin dispatching taxies on the Uber app in Hakuba Village, Nagao Prefecture in the limited winter season to improve conveniences for international visitors who are used to use the Uber app.

LINE Yahoo, the biggest communication app provider, revealed the next phase of the seamless service platform ‘Connect One’ concept for its business clients at LINE Yahoo BIZ Conference 2024.

According to Yahoo! search big data about onsen destinations in Japan, the highest growth rate in searches in comparison between August to October 2024 and a year ago was seen in Shirabu Onsen, Yamagata.

According to the Jalan Research Center's survey, 59.7% of people in residence areas and 63.4% of people in business areas realized that tourists are crowded or slightly crowded.

Yamanashi Prefecture announced that it has given up a Light Rail Transit system for ‘Mt.Fuji Railway Plan’ and instead will introduce rubber tire transportation system without rails as ‘Fuji Tram (preliminary name).’

The number of Japanese outbound travelers was up 22.5% year on year to 1,148,400 in October 2024, totaling 10,644,900 for the first ten months, the first over 10 million since 2019.