JAPAN. Japanese overseas visitors this Summer out of Narita Airport will decrease -19.4% year-on-year as travellers still harbour concerns about SARS, according to the Narita Airport Authority (NAA).
“Booking levels for the peak Summer travel season are hovering at the 50% level compared to a year ago, reflecting a move toward recovery,” said Japanese travel information specialist Travel Journal International Online (TJI).
But it added that recovery is slower than expected due to a shortage of tour products for Asian destinations for the second half of 2003.
A special TJI survey of Summer bookings with major tour wholesalers conducted in early July revealed a sluggish recovery compared to 2002 levels. Look JTB was down -46% for July, -49% for August and December; Jalpak was down -51% for July, -50% for August and -49% for September; Holiday (Tokyo departures) dropped -57% for July, -51% for August and -48% for September; Mach Best Tour was down -47% for July, -49% for August and -55% for September. The survey results are attributed to gloomy consumer sentiments caused by the Iraq war, SARS and Japan’s prolonged economic stagnation.
However, wholesalers expressed confidence that the worst is over as booking levels monitored weekly have begun to move upward from mid-June when SARS came under control.
They said that anticipated last-minute bookings for family-oriented tours and those for the off-peak shoulder period in September by young women in their 20s and 30s will further buoy sales. As for bookings by location, reservations for long-haul destinations such as Hawaii, Oceania and Europe have picked up to 70% of the level of last Summer. July bookings for Jalpak’s I’ll brand tours are selling well and those for Mach tours for Hawaii have surpassed the level of a year ago.
But the situation for tours to Asia and China is less optimistic. In a sombre analysis, TJI said: “Despite having survived one of the worst April-June periods in travel industry history, the year-on-year booking level for Asia sits at about 10% while China faces a single-digit level. Many travel retailers as well as consumers hold a belief that travelling to Asian destinations remains unsafe, despite the lifting of travel advisories by the Japanese government and the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Prior to the containment of the SARS epidemic and lifting of travel advisories, travel wholesalers have pulled from their inventory, or limited, the number of tours available to Asia. Overseas destinations report that all markets but Japan have resumed travel.”
