News

SekainoKakehasi, providing family story research service, launched a new service for Japanese-descent foreigners as roots tourism to visit the ancestor-related places.

Boon Sian Chai, Managing Director and Vice President International Markets at Trip.com, talked about the present and the future of Trip.com, including the outbound travel market from China to Japan.

JTB has estimated that the total number of Japanese travelers during this year’s Golden Week period (April 25 to May 5) will be up 1.8% to 23.3 million, including 520,000 outbound travelers, 67.7% more than a year ago.

Ministry of Justice of Japan has started issuing ‘digital nomad’ visa to a foreigner with annual income of 10 million JPY or more in about 50 visa waiver countries or regions

Japan Tourism Agency has selected 20 pioneer model areas and 51 general areas for prevention of over-tourism, such as ‘Niseko Model for usage of taxi’ in Kutchan, Hokkaido, ‘Equalization of crowd and ease of traffic jam’ in Hakone, Kanagawa.

JAL has launched ‘JAL Corporate SAF Program,’ which enables corporate users to visualize CO2 reduction based on JAL flights in terms of cargo transport or business trips.

The number of cross-border mobile payment ‘Alipay+’ member stores in Japan has exceeded 2 million. Payment amount with the affiliated e-wallets and bank app increased by 200%.

Toyo Metro and Linktivity, a BtoB e-ticket platform, formed a capital and business alliance with a plan to develop ‘Tokyo City Pass (provisional name),’ which is packaged with tourist attraction tickets and subway tickets.

Ikyu, a Japanese OTA for high-end accommodation, opened an overseas hotel booking platform in tie-ups with Expedia Rapid API.

The Japan’s first private jet membership service was launched, providing members with an opportunity to charter Honda Jet in preference to individual charter.

HIS launched a new accommodation booking platform ‘WOW+,’ which lists unique properties only, giving users search opportunities from experience keywords.

Jeff Moomaw, Vice President Asia Pacific at Delta Air Lines, revealed that the airline will increase seat capacity in APAC by 35% in 2024. The airline continues investing to improvement of customer experiences.

The number of Japanese outbound travelers was down 36.2% to 978,900 in February 2024 compared to the same month 2019.

The number of international visitors to Japan in February 2024 was up 7.1% to 2,788,000 compared to the same month of 2019, which were record-high on a single month basis after the pandemic.

Ibaraki Prefecture and Hong Kong-based experience booking platform Klook signed MOU to work together for inbound travel promotions.

Green Destinations Top 100 Story Awards selected Hakone Town, Kanagawa Prefecture, as top in Business & Marketing and Miyazu City, Kyoto Prefecture as 3rd in Culture & Tradition.

Airbnb Japan forms the Home-Sharing Loan framework with financial service provider Oriental Corporation (Orico) and unused house distribution platform ‘Akatsuki Navi.’

Uber Japan partners with Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture, for a ride-sharing service by a local government. 14 local residents who have passed training courses by Daiichi Koutsu Sangyo initially started the service as drivers.

‘JTB BÓKUN,’ an activity booking management system,’ has completed API integration with ‘byFood.com' for inbound travelers to Japan, enabling food tour providers on byFood.com to make their operations more effective.

Airport Limousine has started selling e-tickets on about 400 foreign-based OTAs trough API connections with sales channels on e-ticket booking platform Linktivity.