TokyoTomo Travel Guide

Amadeus Japan introduced on August 19 two types of the online travel booking solutions for the travel agencies. The new products are “Amadeus Agency Internet Engine (AAIE)” which enables travel agencies to build an online booking site in a short period of time and with minimum investment and “Amadeus Business Travel Portal (ABTP)” which is for travel agencies specialized in business traffic. By reducing the initial costs for the introduction of the system, Amadeus aims to attract the small- and medium-sized travel agencies. Kyosuke Koga, Director, Sales Division, Amadeus Japan, said during the orientation seminar for the new products, “Only with market-share battle we can not possibly win a place in the existing highly competitive market. For the future, we must team up with our travel agencies to make new gains and exploit new business opportunities as well.” “In order to achieve these objectives, we must always keep searching for improvements.

AAIE was developed by Amadeus Asia with access to the Amadeus GDS contents in which air tickets, hotels and rent-a-car service are registered as a package software to enable a travel agency to sell the services on its own website. Since the services are provided by the ASP (application service provider), the system can easily be connected with respective websites of the travel agencies. Consequently, it saves not only the initial costs of the system set-up but also shortens the period necessary for the system buildup. In addition to normal fares and PEX fares available in the GDS content, IT fares can also be registered in there. Services are available in eight languages including English and Chinese besides Japanese. Therefore, it is possible to build up a website dedicated to the foreign residents in Japan.

On the other hand, ABTP is a popular edition of Amadeus e-Travel Management which provides online business travel booking and corporate travel management solutions. The function of ABTP is limited to the basics such as air tickets, hotels and rent-a-car service, but can also accept 24/7 booking service. It is also possible to designate preferred airlines and hotels, register corporate rates and business destinations and routes of the frequent customers.

These two products basically provide the travel agencies with the services only registered in the Amadeus GDS contents. Therefore, if either product is simply introduced on the website, it is difficult for the travel agency to differentiate its services from the counterparts who use the same product. Commenting on this point, Koga emphasized that it is important for Amadeus Japan first to have small- and medium-sized travel agencies to experience online sales at first hand. Amadeus will then suggest another solution if the travel agency wants further upgrading of the GDS functions. He also pointed out that it is a merit for a travel agency if the product helps it to reduce time and cost needed for travel arrangements and instead, to provide its customers with high-value added services.

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.

Rakuten Travel, Inc. posted 8,412 million yen in revenue, up 16.0 percent from last year, and 3,555 million yen in operating profit, up 29.3 percent, in the first two quarters of fiscal year 2009 (January 1 to June 30). Under the circumstances where business demand is stagnant, the agency put more weight than ever on leisure travel and introduced, during the term under review, a package plan combining bullet train (shinkansen) and car rental for East Japan market. It began at the same time distribution of a web magazine “Tabiiro Luxury Stays.” As the result, it could attain a growth of 13.1 percent in total sales, or 141.1 billion yen in gross retail value, and a growth of 8.4 percent by room nights in accommodation sales, both of which marked a record high for the agency. Hiroshi Mikitani, chairman and CEO of Rakuten, Inc., commented, “Leisure-oriented travel is leading the market. Travel demand has risen in metropolitan areas and the performance in Osaka is turning around.” Bookings for summer vacation and for the Silver Week in September are reported to be quite strong.

When it comes to strictly three-month period achievements from April to June, revenue was 4,310 million yen, up 14.2 percent year-on-year, and operating profit was 1,742 million yen, up 22.6 percent. Business was solid during the spring holidays (Golden Week), and the accommodation sold was 7,392,000 room nights which is equated to 75.3 billion yen in gross retail value, up 16.7 percent. These figures are also record high in three-month term. The new influenza epidemic was experienced during the period, but Hiroshi Okatake, president of Rakuten Travel, gave an account of what had happened to his agency: “Majority of our customers booked at that time were individuals and were not much affected by the incident. In domestic travel, booking cancellations in Kobe doubled the normal level only for the first three days after the report of the outbreak, but total cancellations throughout May were rather nominal. It seems that bookings made online were more definitive and saw few cancellations.” Operating margin ratio improved by 2.7 points year-on-year but fell to 40.4 percent from 42.9 percent in the first quarter this year. The deterioration was brought about by swollen marketing cost, an investment on information technology, and increased staffing of ITC (Internet Travel Consultants) due to a shift to leisure travel.

Rakuten Group has upgraded the operational system and functions of its web marketplace “Rakuten Ichiba” since the beginning of this year, and Rakuten Travel keeps achieving thereby a month-to-month growth of more than 20 percent in overseas travel. Mikitani expressed his enthusiasm to take in more business from overseas markets and, in connection with Rakuten Travel, to expand inbound travel.

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.

Expedia’s survey titled as “Expedia Best Tourists 2009″ put Japanese tourist at No. 1 spot in overall evaluation. The survey was conducted to assess reputation of tourists from different countries by sending questionnaires to approximately 40,000 hotel managers in Europe, North and South America, and Asia/Pacific. Replies were obtained from 4,557 of them, representing about 12 percent of the total. Japanese tourists have taken first place for three years in a row since the survey started.

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