Travel Sectors

Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) has launched ‘Second Hometown Project’ to exploit regular travelers to a particular countryside region, subsidizing up to 20 million JPY a project for local governments, DMOs or private business providers.

ANA Holdings signed a partnership agreement with U.S.-based Joby Aviation for the future ‘Air Taxi’ service in Japan, joined by Toyota Motor for development of ground-based transportation.

sales of 45 major travel companies increased by 31.6% year on year to 174 billion JPY in total in December 2021. Compared to two years ago, the result recover to a 54% decrease.

KNT-CT Holdings increased sales for the first nine months of FY2021 (April to December 2021) by 71.4% year on year to 104.9 billion JPY because it succeeded in increasing sales of non-travel businesses.

ANA has just begun receiving required COVID-19 certifications and other documents for its ANA Travel Ready service on 20 flights on 19 routes in total from Tokyo Haneda and Tokyo Narita to the U.S., Europe and China.

Japan Tourism Agency subsidizes sustainable tourism contents development program to supports part of expenses on facility development or purchases of goods necessary for sustainable tourism.

According to Teikoku Data Bank survey, bankruptcies of hotels and ryokans in Japan reduced from 118 in 2020 to in 2021, but he ratio of interest-bearing debt to monthly sales rose largely to 30.13 times as of December 2021.

JAL Group announced better financial results for the first nine months of FY2021, boosted by well-recovery of domestic passenger demands and high international cargo operations.

ANA Holdings resulted in the first operating income in the last eight quarters, posting operating income of 100 million JPY for the Q3 of FY2021, boosted by domestic passenger flights and international cargos.

sales of 167 amusement and theme parks in Japan reduced by 50.5% year on year to 425.5 billion JPY in total in FY2020. Top profitable park was Oriental Land operating Tokyo Disney Resort with sales of 146 billion JPY.

JTB Group has launched a cross-sectional sustainability committee and drawn up its sustainability strategy to set a global-standard goal of CO2 emission reduction through Scope 3 value chain in FY2022.

ANA has begun receiving applications for ‘SAF Flight Initiative' for corporate partners to help them reduce CO2 practically for their business trips, which surly contributes to promote their ESG managements.

Japan Business Federation or Keidanren summarized a proposal titled ‘Innovation to sustainable and resilient tourism' to seek ‘autonomous tourism,’ ‘new-typed tourism’ and ‘sustainable tourism.'

Sales of 45 major travel companies decreased by 13.7% year on year to 170 billion JPY in total in November 2021. Sales in domestic travel were down 16.5% year on year to 160.9 billion JPY (down 37.9% over two years ago).

According to Japan Finance Corporation (JFC) survey, 49.5% of lodging providers answered that purchase costs rose, and 69.2% said that they could not pass on the costs to sales prices.

Hiroyuki Takahashi, who took office as Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) Chairman in December 2021, said at a New Year press conference, “My priority mission as JATA chairman is regeneration of tourism.”

The total number of guest nights in November 2021 was down 3.8% year on year to 35.3 million, and the occupation rate was 46%, 0.7 higher points than a year ago than November 2020 or 20 lower points than November 2019.

JR EAST launched ‘JR TIMES,’ an travel information site exclusively for Taiwanese travelers for the future, offering a cross-border EC function to sell limited local products in Japan.

JAL drew up the FY2021-FY2025 midterm management plan, for which one of business pillars is ‘ESG Strategy.’ Aiming at net zero emission in 2050, JAL is developing three arrows including expansion of flights using SAF.

HIS posted a net loss of 50 billion JPY for FY2021 ended October 31 2021, doubling from the previous fiscal year. Hideo Sawada, HIS President said. “We expect that overseas travel demand may begin recovering the next summer.”