News

Narita and Haneda airports will start testing face recognition boarding procedures ‘Face Express’ on April 13 2021, using the NEC biometric identification technology.

JAL and Uber have agreed to a strategic partnership to use the Uber ride-sharing service and food delivery service in North America and Hawaii on JAL app.

ANA Group will kick into gear to establish a Milage-based Ecosystem on its developing super app, launching ‘ANA X’ as a platform business company and ‘ANA Aknido’ as a local revitalization business company.

ANA Sales has started selling package tours for Hawaii departing from July 1 to December 24 this year, offering infection prevention services, such as a transport service for a limited group between the airport and Waikiki.

Five leading organizations for Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics this summer have decided to give up welcoming foreign spectators to ensure safe and security for Japanese people and to pay sold tickets back.

JAL and NEC will jointly demonstrate the face recognition precessing with a mask on at Kagoshima Airport and in Kirishima City until April 21 2021, testing how it works in travel experiences.

Airbnb County Manager Japan Yasuyuki Tanabe talked about 'relationship travelers' in Japan, which are expected to increase Airbnb guests, and also explained the latest awareness survey on Japanese minds to restart traveling.

HIS continued posting worse financial results for Q1 of FY2021 (November 1 2020 to January 31 2021), posting net loss of 8 billion JPY, and announced to give up shifting to a holding company system in November 2021 originally to survive the current challenging situation.

The Commons Project is progressing in Japan through partnership for Common Pass with Toho University and Ishinban to link PCR test result data at the Toho University Haneda Airport Clinic.

Governors of 32 prefectures, two-third of all 47 prefectures, jointly requested gradual restart of ‘Go To Travel' in low-infection prefectures first and extension of the term beyond originally the end of June this year to boost local economy.

Relationship travelers, who visit particular local community for a particular purpose, is estimated at 18.27 million, about 20% of all 106 million 18 years old or older residents nationwide, which consist of 8.61 million (18.4% of all residents) in three major urban areas and 9.66 million (16.3% of all residents) in other local areas.

HIS's offering online tours have collected 50,000 or more participants in total since the product was launched in April 2020 to anchor people’s mind to restart overseas travels in the future.

Telecom Square has released a new free service to issue location certificate on its AR navigation app to meet requirement for travelers entering into Japan to save location information on selected map app for 14 days.

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) will launch ‘Next Generation Air Mobility Office, targeting Level 4 flight without visual contact for drone operation in FY2022 and commercialization for flying car in FY2023.

ANA will begin demonstration tests for IATA Travel Pass, a digital health passport app developed by IATA, on the selected international flights. IATA Travel Pass project is currently joined by 13 airlines in the world.

Google Travel opens free hotel booking links for every hotel and travel company, in addition to ad bidders, allowing them including independent hotels to deliver real-time prices and available rooms on their visibilities.

JAL will sell ‘New Travel Style’ to send travelers to Amami Islands in tie-ups with Kagoshima Prefecture, providing free PCR test before departure and ‘JAL Online Trip’ featuring the Islands.

The number of Japanese guest nights was down 51.1% year on year to 16.4 million in January 2021, largely affected by the state of emergency declaration from December 2020, and the average occupancy rate dropped to 23.7% from 37.7% in December.

The total number of Japanese guests in major hotels in Kyoto City was down 32.5% year on year in 2020. New 518 hotels opened, while 580 hotels closed through 2020. The total number of hotels in Kyoto City decreased year on year for the first time since 2015.

ANA Holdings had requested a total of 33.7 billion JPY as a subsidy for employment adjustment regarding COVID-19, which were the most amounts among listed companies, followed by Kintetsu Group Holdings with 9.5 billion JPY, Oriental Land (Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea) with 7.8 billion JPY, KNT-CT Holdings with 6.8 billion JPY.