News

JTB offers VR-based ‘Virtual School Trip 360’ combining a 360-degree image tour with realtime communication with local people in order to give a school trip opportunity to schools suspending their trips amid COVID-19.

According to the Expedia’s survey on paid holiday in 19 countries and regions, Japan is the world’s top country acquiring ‘multiple short paid holidays' with the ratio of 51%, much higher than 34% in US (2nd). More than half of Japanese also wish paid holidays every month.

The JTB Report 2020, analyzing the outbound travel market of Japan in 2019, illustrates major reasons for the record-breaking result, and some of the trends are likely to continue even after COVID-19 ends.

Economic impact of the Rugby World Cup Japan 2019 reached 646.4 billion ($6.1 billion) JPY in total. Local consumption by spectators amounted to 388.9 billion JPY ($3.6 billion), out of which consumption by international spectators amounted to 348.2 billion JPY ($3.3 billion).

Booking.com and Agoda join 'Go To Travel' campaign, the Japanese government's leading domestic travel recovery campaign. After each of partner accommodations or vacation rentals register themselves in the campaign, the OTA will sell them on its platform.

In preparation for restart of overseas business travel, HIS has launched a support travel plan for travelers to Bangkok, offering a package of the COVID-19-related solutions including test opportunity, self-quarantine hotel and airport transfer.

Travel Voice LIVE in late July welcomed TripAdvisor Japan leader Tomoe Makino to discuss an insight into the future inbound travel market, based on the consumer survey in six countries including Japan.

OYO Japan is launched, integrated OYO LIFE and OYO Hotels into 'One OYO Japan' brand, to raise its awareness in the Japanese market.

JAL ended the 1st quarter of FY2020 ended Kune 30 2020 with net loss of 93.7 billion JPY due to unprecedented cancellations and reductions of flights amid the COVID-19 crisis, expecting passenger revenue will reduce by 55% to 65% for the full fiscal year.

Presidents of NTA, JTB and KNT-CT talked about the future travel at JATA Online Travel Mart 2020 Forum, expecting that overseas travel will be resumed as soon as possible. They discussed demand decentralization, digitalization, workcation and so forth.

Japanese overnight travel performance rate on its travel booking site jalan.net dropped to the lowest ever of 53.6% in FY2019 ending March 31 2020, largely affected by COVID-19 in March 2020. Overnight travel expenses were down 6.1%.

ANA Holdings posted operating loss of 159 billion JPY and net loss of 109 billion JPY for the first quarter of FY2021 ending June 30 2020, unprecedentedly reducing both domestic and international passengers under the COVID-19 crisis.

The ratio of ‘no travel plan’ for this summer vacation accounts for 62%, and even domestic travel planners reduce by 22.1 points year on year to 26.6% maybe because many people still worry about spread of COVID-19.

JTB is exploiting Workcation demands in the New Normal age, developing innovative contents in partnership with local governments and communities, amid change of working and life styles in Japan.

HIS has started selling overseas package tour ‘Social Travel’ series with thorough precautions against COVID-19, which will be performed after October 2020 following lifting of the current restrictions in both Japan and destinations.

Amid COVID-19, Kobe Tourism Bureau has begun selling smart phone-based the city tour pass to support the local tourism industry and to promote contactless tickets for travelers.

Visitors to Japan from South Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong were only 460 in June 2020, 100 from South Korea, 300 visitors from China, 50 from Taiwan and fewer than 10 from Hong Kong.

Google illustrates new search trends in Japan based on Google Trend data by July 11 2020, showing increases in searches of 'Near XX,' 'Summer vacation, what happens,' ‘light camping car' or ‘rental house.'

Universal Studio Japan (USJ) in Osaka lifted the entry restriction completely on July 20 2020, allowing guests nationwide to enter the park managed under New Normal rules.

The Japanese government has decided to start talking with 12 designated countries and regions in Aisa for restart of bilateral travels in preparation for precautions against flow of COVID-19 into Japan.