News

Hilton will open ‘The Waldorf-Astoria Osaka’ and its lifestyle brand ‘Canopy by Hilton Osaka Umeda’ in front of Osaka Station under a contract with ORIX Real Estate.

DMO KYOTO expects that the occupation rate of 103 hotels in Kyoto City will be recover to 65.5% in November this year, reaching the same level as the Go To Travel month last year.

The total number of guest nights in October 2021 was down 5.5% year on year to 32.6 million, considerably improving from 18.2% reduction in September 2021, and the occupancy rate also improved to 42.1%.

Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided a supplementary budget of 3.3 billion to subsidize 5,000 JPY a night or 2,500 JPY a day trip to a Tokyo resident who travel in Tokyo.

Rakuten Group and Marriott International has officially started a strategic partnership for both of the loyalty programs to encourage Rakuten members to join Marriott loyalty program ‘Marriott Bonvoy.’

Jalan research finds the most-imaginable prefecture as an onsen resort is Oita with high popularity to Beppu and Yufuin, followed by Gunma with Kusatsu.

The Japanese government has decided a FY2021 supplementary budget of 36 trillion JPY in total to recover from the economic downturn under the pandemic. For ‘Go To Travel’ program, additional 269 billion JPY have been approved.

JTB reduced domestic travel sales by 11.5% year on year to 31.8 billion JPY in September 2021, down 61.8% compared to two years ago.

JR East, a Japanese railway company, and Satoyume, a local revitalization business start-up, launched a special-purpose company for ‘Hotels along the line’ project.

JTB announced that it has forecast to move into the black for the full year of FY2021 ended March 31 2022, posting net profit of 6.7 billion JPY for the first six months due to selling of several real estates including its headquarters building.

JTB published ‘JTB REPORT 2021 All about Japanese Overseas Travelers,' in which it says that growth of Japanese overseas travelers after the pandemic is expected to be lower than pre-pandemic.

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has launched the ‘Pokémon GO’ program in Odawara City to help visitors discover local history by virtually placing poke stops on the game.

The number of Japanese overseas travelers were 50,800 in October 2021, about 20,000 more travelers than a year ago, but 96.9% fewer travelers than two years ago.

The number of international visitors to Japan in October 2021 was 22,100 only even though the Japanese government has eased entry restrictions for vaccinated international visitors since October.

Airbnb Japan signed a partnership agreement with Iida City and local DMO South Shinshu Tourism in Nagano Prefecture to explore farm stay in south Nagano area for local revitalization.

57.6% of surveyed companies hope that domestic travel boosting ‘Go To Travel’ program will be restarted within FY2021, and the ratio was 76% among lodging, dining and entertainment service industries.

JAL has started accepting vaccination record registration in addition to PCR test result on digital health certificate app ‘VeriFly’ for its flights from Japan to U.S.

Six Sense Kyoto will open in the spring of 2024. The Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG)’s luxury hotel brand will be the first appearance in Japan.

ZIPAIR Tokyo, a JAL Group LCC, will launch three flights a week service between Narita and Los Angeles at the lowest airfare of 27,500 JPY on December 25 2021. It will be the first LCC serving transpacific flight.

Hybrid ‘Tourism EXPO Japan 2022’ will be organized in Tokyo Big Sight for four days from September 22 to 25 next year. This will be the first event in Tokyo in the past four years.