JAPAN. Travel agencies report that sales of overseas trips by Japanese were up +6.5% in March, after 13 months of decline. But the increase only went a small way towards offsetting the overall slump for the fiscal year.
The fiscal year from April 2003 to March 2004 was a bad one for Japan’s travel agencies and tour operators, with a -22.9% plunge in overseas sales dragging total revenues down by -8.9% to Â¥5.11 trillion. The last time growth was posted was in February 2003, before SARS and the Iraq war put people off the iidea of travelling.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport attributed the March upturn to strong demand for travel to the US, Oceania and South Korea.
Overseas travel sales for the first quarter of this year came close to equalling the results for the same period in 2003. There was just a slight decline, of -0.3%.
Domestic travel increased slightly by +0.8% to ¥3.33 trillion for the year, as agencies promoted travel within Japan to make up for the drop in demand for overseas trips.
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