JAPAN. Europe is the first travel region for Japanese travellers to be reaching a full recovery, according to a new survey tracing business sentiment, Travel Journal International Online reports.
In its latest survey polling 568 member companies, the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) said that results showed stability for travel to Europe.
The results are based on e-mail responses from 278 of the 568 travel agencies that were sent the survey between 13 and 26 November, representing a 48.9% response ratio.
Responses range from “very good,” “good,” “average,” “fairly poor” to “poor” to questions on business conditions for the given period broken down by destination and market sector. “Very good” has an index of 100 while at the other end of the spectrum “poor” is -100. “Average” is 0.
JATA said that between January and March 2004, Europe will show the strongest diffusion index (DI) of -16, unchanged from the last survey for October to December 2003. Europe led all destinations during the earlier period by a wide margin.
JATA said that while concerns over terrorism and the recurrence of SARS appear to be in the minds of most consumers, they have not heavily influenced the return of travel demand, as is seen for Europe and Oceania, which is expected to post a -26 DI.
Hawaii will improve from -28 to -22. JATA said that in the October-December period, the young women’s market to Hawaii improved from three months earlier. It pointed out that travel by these women heavily centered on shopping on Oahu with little movement toward the other islands.
Both Asia and China will continue to improve from January on. Asia rebounded 40 points between the July-September period to the last survey, and is expected to gain 10 points to -26.
The U.S & Canada will edge up to a -44 DI while Micronesia will go from -38 to -33.
By sector, business travel is recovering fastest, going from -27 to -20 as companies ease freezes or restrictions on overseas travel imposed during the SARS crisis.
Senior travellers, which TJI Online said represents one of the most resilient of the market sectors, will continue to boast improvement to show a -23 DI, the best showing since the pre-Iraq War January-March 2003 period.
JATA said that the seniors will resume their travel involving long-stay visits to take advantage of their time and money.
Honeymooners, others travelling as a family and young women are moving at the same level of recovery of around -40 DI. Of these, the family market will post the largest improvement of 10 points, said JATA.
One reason for the strong rise of the DI could be the return of the senior market, which helps fuel the family travel demand as grandparents subsidize trips for their adult children and grandchildren
And the middle-age group is keeping pace with its older counterparts as it will reach the -26 DI, its best showing since last October-December 2002.
