News

Westjet of Canada began serving three flights a week between Narita and Calgary on May 1 2023. Travel Alberta has a marketing plan to appeal indigenous tourism as well as World Heritages, nature or foods for Japanese travelers.

JTB has decided to invest to Tablecross, an operator of one-stop food platform ‘byFood.com' for international travelers to Japan, in order to promote gastronomy tourism.

Google unveiled top 10 most-searched destinations departing from Japan and APAC for this summer. The most-searched destination departing from APAC was Japan.

ANA achieved achieved the first full-year profit in the last three fiscal year by posting net income of 89.4 billion JPY in FY2022 ended March 31 2023 (143.6 billion JPY in deficit in FY2021).

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) drew up major action plans in FY2023 to boost full-recovery of the inbound travel market, positioning Northern Europe (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland) as a new focus market.

TOKI AIR, a Nigata Airport-based startup regional airline, has developed ‘TOKI AIR NFT Project’ to launch a fan community ‘CLUB TOKI’ and to sell NFT arts.

Kenji Sunada, founder and CEO of KabuK Style talks about his ambition on fintech-based travel subscription services ‘HafH’ for accommodation and flight. He said, "We are committed to change the world with a new business model.”

Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition begins driving ‘Tourism + EXPO’ efforts in earnest to spread effects of the EXPO nationwide. Nobuhiko Hohokabe, Executive Director of Local Community and Tourism Department, talked about ‘Tourism + EXPO.'

HIS has received 20 times more overseas travel bookings during this coming Golden Week holiday period. The most-booked destination is Seoul, followed by Taipei and Honolulu.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers were 694,300 in March 2023, approximately 150,000 more travelers than the previous month, but still 64% down compared to March 2019.

The number of international visitors in Japan in March 2023 was record-high1,817,500 since the pandemic. Visitors from U.S. (203,000) and Australia (45,200) exceeded the results in March 2019.

Spending in Japan by international travelers for the first quarter of 2023 was estimated at 1.01 trillion JPY. Shopping cost largely reduced from 413.5 billion JPY to 241.7 billion JPY.

Sales of 43 major travel companies increased by 38.6% to 225.5 billion JPY in total in February 2023 compared to the same month of 2019. Overseas travel sales amounted 57.3 billion JPY, though the reduction rate improved from 70.4% in January 2023 to 63.1%.

Okinawa Prefecture drew up ‘Okinawa Tourism Promotion Roadmap’ to become ‘a sustainable destination to be selected in the world' with KPIs of local communities’ happiness of 90%, tourism revenue of 1.2 trillion JPY.

JAL Group LCC ZIPAIR Tokyo has begun operating zero CO2 flights on the Narita-Honolulu route on April 1 2023, the world-first zero CO2 operation through a year on a particular route.

Airbnb Japan signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with Kansai Tourism Bureau for home-sharing-based tourism promotions targeting international visitors for Osaka Kansai EXPO 2025.

The Japanese government approved a IR development plan submitted by Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City to develop an integrated resort with an international convention center, hotels and casino in the artificial island ‘Yumeshima’ of Osaka Bay in autumn or winter 2029.

Japan Adventure Tourism Organization (JATO) launched Adventure Tourism Academy with JAL and JTB to develop adventure tourism in Japan, working together to develop human resources and promotional activities.

JR West, a Japanese railway company in western Japan, has begun offering a share space booking and payment platform service ‘+ PLACE.' About 400 bookable places are available for the service in the beginning.

Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai will be a complete cashless event without accepting cash payment. its original e-money payment ‘EXPO 2025 Digital Wallet’ will be introduced by the end of March 2024.