News

Japan has decided to ease visa rules for Chinese travelers, newly launching 10-years-valid multiple tourist visa for Chinese travelers and extension of valid stays for group tourist visa.

J.D. Power Japan conducted a survey on hotel loyalty program satisfaction for global brands and domestic brands in Japan. Tops are Marriott Bonvoy in global brands and Toyoko INN Club Card in domestic brands.

According to the JTB Tourism Research & Consulting’s survey, the ratio of people who use a smartphone for booking or purchasing travel contents is 60% or higher, 3.3 higher points than a year ago.

The number of international conferences in Japan was up 2.5 times year on yea to 1,376 in 2023. In-person conferences were 736, accounting for 53% of the total, more than hybrid conferences for the first time since 2020.

The number of Japanese outbound travelers was up 14.4% year on year to 1,175,100 in November 2024, but still down 28.4% compared to the same month 2019.

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.