News

The number of Japanese overseas travelers were 51,800 in November 2021, about 20,000 more travelers than a year ago, but still 96.8% fewer travelers than two years ago.

The number of international arrivals in Japan in November 2021 was 20,700 only, 63.5% fewer than a year ago. Omicron variant has forced the Japanese government to suspend the deregulations for a month at least.

Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau (TCVB) and Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau (OCTB) signed a comprehensive partnership agreement in the tourism space to develop joint promotions.

ANA increased its domestic flight bookings by 12.3% year on year to 1,081,252 for 2021/22 New Year holiday period, and JAL up 64.8% year on year to 978,693.

Sales in domestic travel of 45 major travel companies were down 25.7% year on year to 114.2 billion JPY (down 53.6% over two years ago) in October 2021 even after the declaration of a state of emergency was lifted.

Miyama in Kyoto and Niseko in Hokkaido were selected as UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)‘Best Tourism Villages 2021’ based on SDGs to preserve local communities and cultures.

Universal Studio Japan (USJ), Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau and The Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry have signed an agreement on tourism regeneration in Osaka to draw up tourism vision and strategy.

29.7% of Japanese workers in urban areas are interested in moving to local regions including outskirts, and out of them, 12.9% said that they had interests in moving to local regions after the pandemic occurred.

JTB has forecasted that the number of Japanese domestic travelers for this coming New Year holiday period (December 23 2021 to January 3 2022) will increase by 80% year on year to 18 million in total (down 38.5% over two years ago).

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.