JAPAN. Japanese travel wholesalers are poised to attract more of the “baby boom generation” from April this year, as many of this generation begin retirement.
Some 4.98 million Japanese who were born in 1947 will be 60 years old this year, according to statistical data compiled by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The number born in 1947 is the largest among the so-called “baby-boom generation” that comprises those people born between 1947 and 1949. And travel wholesalers are set to take advantage.
ForMach/Best Tours has introduced new tours to attract experienced overseas travellers, incorporating hard-to-obtain small luxury hotel accommodation and extending the tour length to eight to 12 days from the current four to five days. With the relatively expensive average tour price at Y700,000, it plans to attract 1,000 tour participants during the April-October period.
Meanwhile, Jalpak’s I’ll/AVA is increasing the visibility of its tour series dubbed “Senior Package 60” suitable for consumers aged 60 and older. Customers aged 60 and older accounted for 30% of all I’ll/AVA tour participants in the first half of fiscal 2006 and 32% in the second half. It plans to increase the share to 33% in the first half of fiscal 2007.
ANA Hallo Tours has also developed a strategy to capture the baby-boom generation market. It incorporated World Heritage sites into a total of 30 tour courses for Europe under the theme “Escorted Travel to Europe & Russia” and into courses for North America and Asia.
Major tour wholesalers are continuing to focus on European destinations, which showed significant growth in fiscal 2006.
Having set a target of 54,000 tour participants in fiscal 2007 for Europe, up +8% from fiscal 2006, wholesaler Holiday plans to focus on Germany and Switzerland, where it attracted 10,500 participants in the first half of fiscal 2006, accounting for some 50% of its Europe-bound tour participants.
I’ll/AVA has set a target of 25,000 participants for Europe in the first half of fiscal 2007, up +15% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, Look JTB plans to attract 165,000 tour participants for Europe in fiscal 2007, up +3.1% from a year earlier. This is still well down on the record-breaking year 2000. Comparing 2005 to fiscal 2000, the number of tour participants Look JTB handled dropped substantially by -22% for France, -15% for Germany, -40% for Switzerland and -42% for the UK.
Wholesalers, meanwhile, are hesitant about developing US products. The number of participants both at Look JTB and Holiday fell -14% to -15% in fiscal 2006. Both have set targets for fiscal 2007 some -10% lower than in fiscal 2006. I’ll/AVA posted an -8% drop in fiscal 2006 and it expects a -17% drop in the first half of fiscal 2007.
Aside from the series of flight suspensions on the Narita/Las Vegas and Kansai/Los Angeles services by Japan Airlines and the Kansai/Dallas-Fort Worth service by American Airlines in autumn 2006, all tour wholesalers were hard hit by the depreciation of the Yen against the US dollar and hikes in hotel room rates.
MORE STORIES ON JAPANESE TRAVEL
Hawaii’s Japanese visitor market starts 2007 poorly – 05/03/07
Japanese overseas travel bookings slip -3.3% in 2006 – 24/01/07
Japanese outbound market set for sluggish start in 2007 – 15/01/07
“˜Levelling off’ expected for Japanese outbound travel market in 2007 – 04/01/07
