Asia Pacific Market Update

JAPAN

Discover New England Summit 2016

DNE Japan Team

Global Consulting

Shoko Hirao- Vermont

Mari Miyajima- Tokyo

Demographics & Economy

• Population: 127 million, 11th in the world

(US 321 million, 4th in the world)

• Largest metropolitan area,

Tokyo- 38 million

Osaka- 20 million

Nagoya- 9.4 million

• Entire Japan is smaller than California

• GDP: $4.96 trillion

3rd in the world after US and China

• Unemployment: 3.6%

Primary Travel Period

• Golden Week: End of April through beginning of May- four National

holidays- April 29~May 8, 2016

• Obon: Mid August

• Silver Week: End of September- two National holidays- September

17~22, 2016

• Thanksgiving and Christmas are not holidays in Japan

• New Year holiday: including Emperor’s birthday on Dec 23rd

School Holidays

• Spring vacation: 2 weeks, late March ~ early April

• Summer vacation: 5 weeks, late July and August

• Winter vacation: 2 weeks, late December~January

• Thanksgiving and Christmas are not holidays in Japan

• School goes through end of July- summer vacation is just 1 month

• New school year and fiscal year start in April

Japanese Arrivals to US and New England

Travel Marketing Insights

Office of Travel & Tourism Industries (OTTI)

2012 2013 2014

US 3,698,000 3,730,000 3,580,000

New

England

78,000 71,000 83,000

• Japan ranks number 6 for New England arrivals (2nd to the US not

counting Canada and Mexico)

• Visitor spending per stay is estimated at $426, per night is $71

• Nights in New England is 6 nights

Visitor Spending in the US 2014(billions of US dollars)

US Department of Commerce

Canada27.2

China23.8

Mexico19.3

Japan17.3

UK13.2

Brazil13.0

Forecast for top vacation visitors

to the US 2020 Arrivals in (000) Travel Market Insights

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

UK Japan Brazil China Germany France Australia S Korea Columbia Italy

UK- 3.1 million

Japan- 2.5 million

Brazil- 2.2 million

China- 1.9 million

Japan Airlines

• Launched Boston/Tokyo non-stop service in April 2012

• First and only non-stop service to/from Japan

• Operates daily with Boeing 787 Dreamliner

• The aircraft will be upgraded to 787-9 in June 2016

• 186 seats will increase to 196

• Average of 90% load factor March ~ December

Other air service to New England

• Japan Airlines: Tokyo/JFK (2 daily), Tokyo/Chicago

• All Nippon Airways: Tokyo/JFK (2 daily), Tokyo/DC

• Delta: Tokyo/Detroit, Nagoya/Detroit, Tokyo/JFK, Tokyo/Atlanta

• American: Tokyo/Chicago

• United: Tokyo/Chicago, Tokyo/JFK, Tokyo/Newark

• Tour operators are starting to use BTV, MHT, PWM

Traveler Characteristics (2014)

• Purpose of trip: 73% vacation/holiday, 15% business

• Top 3 activities: Shopping, Sightseeing and Dining

• Length of stay: 7.7 days (was 6.6 in 2013)

• Advance trip booking time: 2.8 months

US Department of Commerce

Travel Companies in Japan

• Japan has 3 types of travel companies- 9,143 companies

• Type 1 (696): Provide package, wholesale and retail services

• Type 2 (2,777): Take the products produced by type 1 and sell

directly to consumers. Type 2 do not produce products

• Type 3 (5,670): Intermediary agency. Type 3 takes products from

type 1 and sell to type 2

Japan Association of Travel Agents

Travel Company Trends

• Japanese travelers are becoming more experienced

• Travel companies are shifting their focus from group to FIT

• The 2014 number of FIT travelers were 56.5%

• Whether FIT or group, all bookings go through travel agents in

Japan

Japan Association of Travel Agents

FIT and Group

• FIT consumers are still purchasing tours from travel agents

• Most FIT tours include airfare and hotel only

• Group size is getting smaller

• Majority of group is minimum 8 and maximum 20

Japan Association of Travel Agents

Top 5 factors

for making their travel destination decisions

1. Safety concerns

2. Financial factors (strength of Japanese Yen)

3. Compatibility of local cuisine

4. Ease of communication at the destination

5. Value of travel as a life experience (NEW)

Travelers’ destination satisfaction in 2014

1. Spain

2. Eastern Europe

3. Western Europe (excluding France, Spain, Italy and Germany)

4. US East Coast

AB Road Research Center

Hawaii ranked 10th and US West Coast ranked 12th

Travelers found uncompetitive in terms of quality of service

versus cost of travel

Online Travel Market

• 79.1% of the population are internet users (100.6 million people)

• Accessing internet via a smartphone increased 19% in 2015 to

48.32 million people

• Most online bookings are domestic and close-haul destinations

• For long-haul destinations, internet is used to gather information

SNS (Social Network Services)

• Facebook is the largest and is estimated to have 33.7 million users

• Twitter is 2nd and is estimated to have 28.7 million users

• DNE started a Facebook page in Japanese

www.facebook.com/DNEJapan

• Need your information

Travel Trends

• Seniors still are the fastest growing travel segment.

• Currently 1 out of every 4 people in Japan is over the age of 65

(28.5% of the population, 14.8% in the US)

• Seniors have time and money to travel to long-haul destinations

• Japanese seniors are healthy and have energy

• SIT (Special Interest Tours)- travelers with special interest in

mind. Example- spectator sports, arts and culture, hobby

(quilting, photography), gourmet (wine, cooking classes) activities

(hiking, skiing) and anything else you can think of

Travel Trends for New England

Hiking

• Hiking for seniors continues to increase in interests and products

• Hiking products are day hikes only

• Use hotels for overnight, no camping

• Hiking trails must have some meaning/famous or special views

(Appalachian Trail, fall foliage and etc)

Tour Brochures

• General brochures are published twice a year in April and October

• Seasonal brochures are published throughout the year

• Online only brochures are increasing

• The planning for the tour packages are done in both US and Japan

• The brochures are produced in Japan

Japanese Receptive Operators

• 15 Japanese receptive and tour operators in LA, 5 in New York and

4 in Boston

• Due to US/Japan time differences, language barrier, currency

difference, all contracts are decided/singed with the US offices

• Itinerary planning and destination suggestions are made by the US

office

• Tour operators/planners in Japan contracts with US offices

• Must get to know the US operators when entering this market

before you go to Japan. Boston first then NYC and LA

DNE Sales Missions

• Japan sales mission to Tokyo & Osaka: February 1~4, 2016

• Los Angeles sales calls: April 20~21, 2016

• New York sales calls: May 23~24, 2016

JATA Tourism Expo 2015

• DNE shared a booth with Massachusetts office of Travel & Tourism

• September 24-27, 2015 at Tokyo Big Sight

• Tour operators and travel agents (40,622) on the first day and consumers for

the last 2 days, with a total of 173,602 visitors in 3 days.

Brand USA Press Fam

• Hosted a 5-night press fam in August 2015 to ME and NH

• The theme the media requested was hiking and outdoors

• Editors and writers from 6 magazines participated resulting with $2.3

million in media coverage

Globetrotter Media Fam

• Globetrotter Travel Guidebook 2016/17 revision

was published

• The only guidebook that contains all 6 New

England information

• Total of 333 pages

• The book will be revised in 2017

• The writer will be back in summer 2016 and 2017

• Hosting hotel (2 nights) will receive 1/3 page

advertorial valued at $2,000

Tour Brochure Samples

Tour Brochure Samples

Tour Brochure Samples

Recommendations

• Long-term commitment, at least 2 years- Japanese operators want to

build a relationship before they commit

• Keep the same sales person. Face-to-face meeting is valued

• Have your information in Japanese

• Hotels must have rooms with 2 beds and bath tubs, a king size bed and a

rollaway are not accepted

• Stay away from things that are Japanese unless they are world famous

• Japanese like things that are famous/unique to the region

Thank you

Arigato Gozaimasu

Questions?