Japan Travel Trade Weekly News
Keeping you abreast of what's going on in the
Japanese travel and tourism industries.
News consolidated by Travel Vision, Inc. updated every week.
Leading Travel Agencies' Sales Achieved 6% Growth in December with
Overseas Travel's Gain of 5.4% but Now Slowing Down
The aggregate revenue of leading travel agencies for December
2007 rose 6.0 percent over the previous year to 541 billion yen.
Overseas travel sales were up 5.4 percent to 221.2 billion yen,
domestic travel up 5.5 percent to 313 billion yen, and foreign
visitor travel up 69.1 percent to 6.6 billion yen.
Package tour sales grew 10.8 percent to 150.6 billion yen in
total, of which overseas travel was 72.8 billion yen, up 9.4 percent,
domestic travel 77.6 billion yen, up 12.2 percent, and foreign
visitor travel 0.2 billion yen, up 19.2 percent.
The total number of customers handled on package tours was
3,747,720, up 8.5 percent, of which 430,215 were for overseas travel,
up 2.6 percent, 3,304,560 were for domestic travel, up 9.2 percent,
and 12,945 were for foreign visitor travel, up 58.8 percent; thus,
the growth of overseas package tour was rather moderate in sales but
notable in unit price.
In the ranking of sales volume of overseas travel - excluding a
group of 14 JTB companies - H.I.S. took the top place with sales of
26,287 million yen (growth of 9.3 percent), followed by JTB World
Vacations (25,512 million yen, +13.1%), Hankyu Express (18,578
million yen, +5.9%), Kinki Nippon Tourist (15,088 million yen,
+3.1%), and JTB Tokyo Metropolitan (12,815 million yen, +2.9%).
When compared with the performance in November, JTB World
Vacations and Hankyu Express changed the places with each other, and
Nippon Travel Agency (10,689 million yen, -7.7%) fell one notch from
No. 5 to No. 6 while JTB Tokyo Metropolitan moved up to No. 5. In
terms of growth rate, i.JTB topped the list with a growth of 37.7
percent (sales: 770 million yen), with PTS (+21.3%, 2,845 million
yen) and Big Holiday (+19.4%, 925 million yen) following behind.
Meanwhile, many agencies have a bleak outlook for their business
from January through March, particularly those that concentrate in
package our sales. The booking status survey with major package tour
wholesalers conducted recently by Japan Association of Travel Agents
(JATA) reveals poorer performance compared with last year.
Some points out fuel surcharge is becoming a major factor to
decelerate the growth of overseas travel, but others say the weak yen
coupled with the surcharge works to aggravate consumers' sentiment
for travel.
JAL and ANA Groups to Raise Fuel Surcharge, Reflecting Revised Fuel
Price Benchmark
The ANA Group requested approval on February 15 from Ministry of
Land, Infrastructure and Transport to raise the international fuel
surcharges as the average benchmark price of Singapore kerosene hiked
as much as USD109.06 per barrel from November 2007 to January this
year.
The new surcharges will be levied on its international tickets to
be issued on or after April 1 to June 30, ranging from 500 yen to
7,000 yen. The North America and Middle East routes, subject to an
additional fuel surcharge of 7,000 yen, will be increased to 20,000
yen per one way from the current surcharge of 13,000 yen.
The JAL Group, likewise, filed with Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism on February 20 a request for approval to
raise the fuel surcharges to be placed on its international tickets
issued between April 1 and June 30 in a range of surcharges 100 yen
to 3,000 yen. Consequently, the new fuel surcharges will be 20,000
yen for the North America, Europe, Middle East and Oceania routes and
24,000 yen for the Brazil route.
Commenting on the possible reduction of the fuel surcharge that
captured consumer attention following the recent increase of IATA
normal air fares, ANA public relations office said, "The ANA Group
has revised fuel price benchmarks and disclosed relevant information.
Without the revision, the new fuel surcharge applicable to the North
America route, for instance, would have been 21,000 yen," thus
underlining the fact that the price range of fuel surcharge is
substantially lowered compared to the previous price benchmark.
In order to avoid frequent revisions, the fuel surcharge
benchmark list is revised in such a way that it reflects a range of
fuel price fluctuations of every 10 USD per barrel instead of every 5
USD, enhancing transparency in the price benchmarks.
The ANA Group will continue to proactively address issues of the
future air tariff structure as well as the future fuel surcharge
benchmarks.
The JAL Group basically set the same fuel surcharges as the ANA
Group. When the two Japanese airlines came up with a different level
of fuel surcharges last January, it was indeed anticipated that their
different market approaches would stimulate a change in the market,
bringing there in a new development.
On the contrary, however, the two airlines introduced basically
the same level of fuel surcharges from April, thus no drastic change
was made to the surcharges. "The JAL Group has not lost its traffic
to the competitor during the months of January through to March,"
mentioned JAL public relations office.
As it turned out, the level of the fuel surcharges has remained
within the previous tariff mechanism. Asked to comment on it, JAL
public relations office explained, "IATA decides its fares only at
its annual tariff conference and, therefore, IATA is not able to
flexibly reflect the fuel price changes in the air fares responding
to variable kerosene prices. Since the ongoing fuel surcharges are
internationally levied on all tickets, the new fuel surcharges from
Japan have been kept in line with the present airline market
condition.
*Revised Fuel Surcharge Level per One-way in JPY for APR-JUN2008
ANA Group
Route | Revised | Current
Europe, North America, Middle East | 20000 | 13000
Hawaii, Thailand, India, Singapore, Malaysia | 14000 | 9900
Hong Kong, Taiwan, Guam, Vietnam | 8000 | 6000
China | 6500 | 4700
Korea | 2500 | 2000
JAL Group
Route | Revised | Current
North America, Europe, Middle East, Oceania | 20000 | 17000
Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Hawaii | 14000 | 12500
Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan, Guam, Vietnam | 8000 | 7500
China | 6500 | 5900
Korea | 2500 | 2400
Brazil | 24000 | 21000
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