In its latest bi-monthly report on travel trends, the Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) indicated that figures for spring 2016 showed a flat-to-negative picture for outbound travel; this comports with the most recent data from the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO), which has reported that, for the first quarter of 2016, there was zero percent change in the number of visitors from Japan to the USA. For mid-summer, however, things look different.
Reported JATA, the total number of overseas Japanese travelers In July 206 was 1,427,000—an 8.9 percent increase over the previous year. On year‐on‐year basis, 4.5 percent more Japanese traveled abroad compared to January–July 2015 with 403,000 travelers over the same period of 2015.
Using the measure of “Transactions by Major Japanese Travel Agents.” compared to last year, overseas travel shrank by 2.1 percent in April and 10.9 percent in May.
However, using the measure of “Bookings at Major Travel Agencies,” in April, they were 2.5 percent below the same period of 2015 but May saw a 10.9 percent decrease year‐on‐year basis. According to JATA, the 2016 Golden Week (April 29 to May 3-5) holidays “were not contributory to taking long leaves and the sense of worry about the international affairs resulted in a smaller number of bookings compared to the same period of 2015.”
