Japan Bound

The total number of Japanese guest nights in October 2022 (provisionally) was up 32.5% year on year to 42.1 million, which were up 5.8% even compared to October 2019. The occupancy rate was 52.6% overall, higher than 49.5% in September 2022.

Navitime Japan, a Japan’s leading navigation solution provider, says ‘Japan Travel by NAVITIME’ have increased rapidly in September and October 2022. Searches by users in Asia particularly grew, and Hokkaido, Yamanashi and Oita were more searched.

Japan Culture and Technology (J-CAT) recently launched a local experience booking platform ‘Otonami’ listing a variety of high quality tour contents.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in October 2022 was 498,600, which were up 2.5 times from 206,500 in September 2022, but remained a 80% decrease compared to three years ago.

Spending in Japan by international visitors for three months from July to September 2022 was estimated at 163.1 billion JPY or 310,000 JPY a day.

Malaysia Airlines has augmented its Kuala Lumpur-Japan network since November 2022 to meet growing traveler demands from Malaysia, increasing flights for Haneda and Narita.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has restarted full-scale promotions to the world, following practical open of the border on October 11 2022, focusing on adventure tourism as well as higher-valued travel from Europe, U.S. and Australia particularly.

Digital Agency of Japan will integrate ‘My SOS,’ a health certificate app, into ‘Visit Japan Web’ on November 1 2022 to make faster immigration possible.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in September 2022 was 206,500, which were the first over 200,000 a month in the pandemic. Compared to August 2019 (2,272,883 arrivals), the result remained a 90.9% decrease.

Universal Studios Japan (USJ) and Ant Group signed a corporate marketing partnership contract to introduce Alipay+ payment service in the park, expecting that the partnership will raise payment conveniences for visitors to Japan from Asia.

Searches for travel in Japan on major OTAs have been growing since the Japanese government announced the remaining travel restrictions on foreigners would be lifted on October 11 2022.

the number of international arrivals in Japan in August 2022 was 169,800 only. The partial reopen of the inbound travel market since June 2022 did not work well, though arrivals were more than 100,000 for five consecutive months.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that Japan will fully open the border on October 11 2022 by lifting visa requirement for foreigners and the limited entry cap a day.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) has launched a digital promotion using the AR technology in Singapore, in which a user can enjoy virtual experience of the famous summer festival ‘Nebuta’ in Aomori Prefecture on a smartphone.

The tourism promotion committee for Taiwan in Japan met the counterpart in Taiwan in Taoyuan City, Taiwan for 2022 Japan-Taiwan Tourism Summit to share a goal to achieve 7.5 million two-way travelers a year.

Japan Tourism Agency has revised "Guidelines for Accepting Foreign Tourists." A travel agency or a travel service arrangement agency is responsible for the tour. They have to make arrangements for round-trip air tickets and all accommodations throughout traveling in Japan before entering Japan.

Japan will raise a cap of the number of entries into Japan from 20,000 a day to 50,000 a day and at the same time permits a foreign tourist tour without a tour conductor on September 7.

Singapore-based OTA Agoda has been raising its presence in the Japan market. A leader of the OTA in Japan talked about its unique strategies both for domestic travel and for inbound travel.

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) Executive Senior Vice President Kyoji Kuramotchi talked about the next steps for rebound of the inbound travel market, expecting FIT will be opened soon. How does JNTO develop its strategies to achieve the national goals.

Japan will lift requirement of negative certificates on PCR test within 72 hours before leaving a destination on September 7, but maintain a cap of 20,000 entries a day for a while.