TokyoTomo Travel Guide

The news of the formation of AirAsia Japan Co Ltd, a joint-venture between ANA and AirAsia, is certainly going to travel throughout the whole of Japan and Asia. We are seeing ANA trying very hard to expand itself vertically if not horizontally or a hybrid, to venture in not one but two low-cost carriers.

Just beginning of this year, we were treated to the news of the creation of A&F Aviation Co Ltd, then later to Peach Airlines, also a joint-venture between ANA and HongKong Far Eastern Investment Group. The weird thing about it is that why would ANA be thinking of forming a low-cost airlines and based it in Kansai International Airport(KIX) Osaka, where in the last few years we heard constant news of foreign airlines backing out from this market. The explanation I gave myself back then was, for ANA to form a new airline or in any other business, it should not be eating into its own market share. So, ANA was hoping to spur demand and to create a new market. And now it finally makes more sense to me, as things begin to unfold.

The biggest price for any airlines eyeing on the Japanese market is to be able to operate from Haneda airport if not Narita airport. ANA certainly must have planned it right from the start who to choose as its favorite partner. Rumors was saying Jetstar, which later Jetstar went to JAL and then could it be Singapore’s Tiger Air, but poor little kitten has been struggling and is no match for AirAsia and only to find itself good at exchanging mouth war games between the both. Isn’t it obvious that the winner would turn out to be AirAsia, asia’s largest low-cost carrier, whose tone of voice is louder than any legacy full-fledge carrier. Both big boys, ANA and JAL have adopted the same strategy that is; if you can’t beat them(LCC), join them.

Back to the local scene, Skymark Airlines, Japan’s only hopeful low-cost carrier, whose vision one day is to be able to fly out of Japan, and it is not going to take to long to happen, has announced to start operations using Narita International Airport(NRT), actually in Chiba not Tokyo, as a base. Again sending shockwaves with news of its purchase of 6 Airbus A380 aircrafts and later up its order for another 2 more aircrafts.

Shortly after this piece of news, Skynet Asia Airways turned green in color, or rather decided to adopt a new name and a new corporate identity, with a new name called Solaseed Air. Solaseed Air a.k.a the airline previously known as Skynet Asia, was thinking that the new name is catchy and easy to remember.

Not to forget and before that, JAL has decided that they have come this far, after spending so much money with marketing the JAL brand name with its JAL lettering logo, has decided to go back to using an old logo with an icon of a crane.  They said that this is to help to forget the old unsuccessful Japan Airlines that lost billions of yen, to mark a new start. They must have ran out of ideas seeking for a fresh start using dropped logo.

So much for my personal update in the airlines industry happening in Japan in the last 6 to 10 months. Competitions within the airlines are higher than ever before. The changes can be very drastic and sometimes dramatic too.

As I reported a week ago, Japanese economy and travel industry have been hit hard by the chaos caused by massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. Corporations are acutely agonized and far from doing “business as usual” because of a series of “unusual” events such as rolling blackout, irregular operation of public transportation systems, and worries over nuclear power plant failures.

Now as a follow-up of my column last week, I am going to report what is going on in the Japanese travel industry. I am not familiar with what foreign media are telling about us, but as far as I know, no major changes have been perceived in travel industry or people’s livelihoods since last week. A change we notice is easier availability of bread at best.

No major changes signify no substantial alteration of the situation either for the better or for the worse. One noticeable phenomenon is office relocation of foreign companies’ including travel agencies and airlines, embassies, and foreign government tourism offices to Kansai areas. Airlines continue normal operation with an extra stopover at Seoul or Hong Kong in some cases. There was a carrier who postponed its inaugural flight to Narita airport. Many airlines waive fees for cancellation or rebooking of air tickets.

A number of travel agencies, like last week, halted tour operation according to the circumstances, and exempted cancellation charges. On the demand side, travel cancellations followed in force, irrespective of overseas, domestic, or inbound travel. A second-tier travel agency reportedly sustained cancellations of as many as 60,000 people for domestic travel alone. Speaking of the cancelled overseas and domestic travel, many people appear to hold off their travel plans emotionally, rather than to give them up being forced by any disaster of earthquake, tsunami, or the nuclear power plant problems. Many of the travel agencies we interviewed are inflicted by serious damages, but even those in non-afflicted areas said they hesitated to do marketing activities because of consumers’ voluntary restraint.

In face of dwindling demand, some domestic hotels have capped their operation at 60 percent level of the capacity, and others refrain temporarily from sales activities. Japan Tourism Agency (JTA) has decided not to do any promotional campaigns.

For the purpose of bailing out ailing travel agencies in the devastated areas, the Japanese government has approved of validity extension of their travel license and expanded the scope of financial aid program for the smaller businesses to all industries to include travel agencies and lodging facilities as well. The travel license extension is a measure to give time to the affected agencies in renewing their registration. Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) is also considering exempting them from membership dues.

Meanwhile, there was a good sign witnessed in the development of aviation services over the weekend as the flights once diverted to Kansai and Chubu (Central Japan) airports are coming back to Narita, and the flights making an extraordinary stopover en route are tuned to original non-stop flights. Finnair was the first to announce they were going to reinstate the three weekly non-stop services to Japan. It is widely acknowledged that foreign carries opted for an extra stopover because of the crew’s fear of radioactive exposure. I wonder how Finnair could take the initiative in making a decision to reinstate the original service. Is it part of the government guideline or reflection of nationality?

It is good to know that travel industry is giving a helping hand to the devastated areas. JTB, for instance, offered relief fund of 100 million yen. H.I.S. is mounting a campaign whereby outbound travelers are expected to buy commercially-bottled water abroad and send it to the afflicted areas collectively. A group of domestic tour guides are making preparation for volunteer activities. Many airlines, Japanese and foreign alike, are working to transport relief goods or to take care of frequent fliers’ mileage points for donation.

Some foreign government tourism offices are discussing feasibility of a collaborated campaign with travel agencies in which a small portion of package tour sales is forwarded to the afflicted people as relief money. There are travel agencies who plan, on their own accord, tours inclusive of donation to raise money for a relief. These are a sort of efforts in an attempt to motivate people to go on a trip who are emotionally hesitant in doing so.

We are being encouraged by heart-warming messages from foreign government tourism offices. NYC & Company, for example, is making aration for a special campaign for earthquake disaster reconstruction and recovery. The road to recovery is not easy, but their consideration is very much touching. Five United Nations’ organizations including International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issued an impressive statement in our favor endorsing international flights to and from Japan are safely operative, in which we took great comfort.

Some tourism offices are planning to resume consumer’s summer campaigns sometime in June. Should they schedule them for June, travel agencies must start producing tours now in order to coordinate with the campaigns.

Travel agencies look to the spring holidays (Golden Week) and further to the summer season. They have almost come out of the hectic days to deal with cancellations and rebooking. Some agencies told us they were making strenuous efforts to put cancelling customers on another tour or destination.

In retrospect, travel and tourism industries have undergone a number of difficulties after the turn of the century, such as 9-11 incident, Iraqi war, SARS outbreak, avian flu, and global financial crisis, experiencing a steep decline of demand each time. Our business environments have also changed dramatically as are illustrated by airline’s repeal of agency commission, mass tourism of Asian countries, and dominance of online travel operators. They are an incredibly unfavorable chain of phenomena that dealt blows to the Japanese travel industry. On top of all those, we are now engulfed by trauma of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power plant failure.

Improvement of the situation will largely rest with how well the control over the troubled nuclear power plant operation is regained. Nobody knows when it will be, but it is certain to take a longer time before we emerge from hardship and get back to normal. The current business circumstances are harsh on us, but the travel agency’s core mission is to convey to people the dynamism and significance of travel and motivate them to a trip. The tragedy just happened would serve as a real test for travel agencies to determine whether they are viable in the tough time.

We concentrate our hopes on performances of travel agencies who were not trapped by the disaster. Those in non-affected areas are expected to take a vigorous step forward and take the initiative in revitalizing the market for recovery.

By YUICHI MATSUMOTO, Editor in chief

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.

In January, there was a hot topic for car lovers that Aston Martin, the world famous luxury car manufacturer, started selling a mini-car “Cygnet” that costs about 4.1 million yen (30,995 pound). Cygnet is a customized car based on Toyota’s compact car, “IQ.” IQ was released two years before, but could not grasp the consumer’s heart enough to be a big hit. I wonder what kind of people would own Cygnet that worths 4.1 million yen.

Just about the same time, “Tokyo Auto Salon 2011,” an annual festival for customized cars, was held in Makuhari Messe, Japan. Since 1983, this has grown to be an event as large as “Tokyo Motor Show,” visited by 240 thousand people in three days. This event has about 100 thousand more people, compared to Tokyo Motor Show in 2009 when visitors plunged due to global financial crisis (calculated based on average number of visitors during the three days of Tokyo Motor Show).

While Tokyo Motor Show is about new futuristic cars, the main features of Tokyo Auto Salon are remodeled cars with car equipments from aftermarket. That said, Japanese customized cars are not those luxurious cars like the previously mentioned Aston Martin. Instead, more than 600 sports car and minivans coordinated with aluminum wheels and aero parts were exhibited in the huge venue, mainly visited by young families.

These days, there were exhibitor from Asia such as Taiwan and Korea, but Japanese cars were still popular to be customized. On the other hand, car-tuning shops are also reviving. New type of customized 4WD cars like “FJ Cruiser” was displayed in some booth.

An Array of Unique Prius and Insight

In reflection of the current situation, there were many showpieces based on hybrid cars, including the globally popular “Prius” and “Insight.” Of course, there are more to see. The stage was crowded with people who tried to take a look at Honda’s new hybrid sports car “CR-Z” and Nissan’s new type electric vehicle “LEAF” that has been customized into a more sporty look. Other highlights were vintage cars of 1960s being transformed and customized into EV which attracted attention of the visitors.

Many people still enjoy customizing cars by upgrading the engine or putting on flashy aero parts, but the recent trend is to have a mature taste by changing the interior to a woody design or changing the head light to the state-of-the-art LED lights.

The customizing cost is reasonable, ranging from 30,000 yen (interior panel) to 240,000 yen (LED head light) excluding labor charge. As it is more fun to remodel the car into something original than buying a brand new car, the users are gradually spreading from the young to those in the mature age.

Quickly sensing such momentum, domestic car manufacturers such as Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Subaru and Suzuki, participated in the event to win the demands in advance. Of them, Toyota exhibited 17 cars including the sports concept model of a new brand, showing eagerness to enter customized car market. Mr. Akiyo Toyota, the President of the company, even showed up in the booth for two consecutive days.

An automotive critic familiar with car designs commented the popularity of customized car that “Customized cars are further acknowledged in Western countries, and there is a difference between Japanese and Western users in terms of its awareness,” and pointed out “In a market dominated by common cars such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda, there is no way that ultra luxurious customized cars like Cygnet will succeed.”

While Western countries have a aristocratic culture, Japan’s customized car is more a commoner’s culture. Though it is not a top-notch art craft, Japanese customized cars are interesting with full of playful spirits like an inexpensive wind-up doll.

Source: Travel Vision

Travel Vision Inc. provides information on the travel industry in Japan via "Daily Travel Vision", a Japanese-language e-mail newsletter, and the "Travel Vision" website. There are nearly 110,000 people working in the Japanese travel industry, and Travel Vision is proud to be bringing travel news to more than 30,000 people through Daily Travel Vision.