Visa is difficult, there is no group tour, why is Japan tourism still popular?
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Column | Cultural tourism business story
Field | Outbound travel
01
Late at night after watching the premiere of "Slam Dunk", Hou Jingyi, who lives in Beijing, suddenly came to her senses, and on the way home, she began to refresh the websites of various airlines, preparing to buy a ticket to Japan.
To her surprise, airfares to Japan have recently become cheaper, and tickets under 2,000 yuan abound, compared with the daunting 78,000 yuan a few months ago, "It's like not asking for money." ”
Behind the plummeting air ticket prices, flights between China and Japan have increased one after another.
In April, Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Air China and other airlines began to increase their flights.
The first is that Japan Airlines has quadrupled the number of flights to and from China since March 26, including flights from Tokyo's Narita and Haneda airports to and from Beijing, Shanghai and Dalian, and flights that had previously been suspended due to the pandemic have gradually resumed.
Coincidentally, ANA increased the number of flights on its China route in March by 2.5 times that of the same period last year, following the rapid rise in demand for travel between China and Japan and the gradual recovery of the travel market.
China Southern Airlines announced on the 7th that it will resume two round-trip routes from Shanghai Pudong to Tokyo and Shanghai Pudong to Osaka from April 13.
Tianjin Airlines will resume the route between Tianjin and Central Airport from April 10. The resumption of the same frequency as before the pandemic, 4 round-trips per week.
Travel statistics found that by the May Day "Golden Week", routes from Japan to Chinese mainland will resume to more than 60 flights per week.
The resumption of flights by many airlines has brought prices back to normal on China-Japan routes, and even though Japan has not yet been listed as an outbound tour destination, the threshold for domestic independent travelers to travel to Japan has been greatly reduced.
It is worth mentioning that this year's May Day holiday includes a total of five days off and weekends, compared with the three-day holiday in previous years, which undoubtedly fuels people's desire to travel for a long time.
According to Fliggy data, the turnover of Japanese tourism products in the first week of March this year alone has exceeded 34 million, hot selling products such as "One-night Double Breakfast Package at ANA InterContinental Okinawa, Japan" have been sold out, and single products such as "Osaka Shinsaibashi Bridge Hotel Two-Night Stay Package" have exceeded 1,000.
Coinciding with the national screening of "Slam Dunk", many Chinese people recall the good memories of their youth, and after 26 years, the young people who originally watched cartoons have also become stable middle-aged, gradually moving from a niche group to the mainstream of the tourism consumption market.
Amid multiple positive factors, according to Nikkei, the number of tourists Chinese mainland tripled from the previous month, reaching 75,000. In March, Japan Airlines more than doubled the number of passengers on its China route compared to the previous month.
"See you in a national competition, a youth in the first wait," Hou Jingyi returned home, opened her passport that had been sealed for 3 years, "fortunately it has not expired, there are 2 years left in the Japanese visa, after the release, there is the freedom to say and go, it's time to go to Kamakura." ”
02
On the homepages of major OTAs, there has been a lot of "Japan tour" promotion, and the rumors about Japan becoming the next outbound tour destination are getting more and more true, is Japan travel really going to be popular?
Although Chinese tourists who are preparing to travel to Japan can no longer hold back, He Peipei, who has been doing visa business in Japan and South Korea for many years, believes that if you want to return to the peak of China-Japan tourism in 2019, there are many constraints, and Japanese visas are the first to bear the brunt.
Different from before the epidemic, the qualification requirements for single-, three-year and five-year visas in various consular districts in China have recently been increased by different ranges.
He Peipei believes that the tax list recently strictly checked by the Japanese consulate is a policy that makes many domestic tourists particularly helpless when sending visas, "The tax clearance certificate of the five-year multi-entry visa needs to pay 90,000 yuan a year, and even a single visa needs to pay 8,000 yuan, and the embassy spot checks before the epidemic are often not so strict." ”
The cumbersome Japanese visa is indeed a shackle on Chinese tourists.
Ai Yu, who went to school in Shanghai, had a three-year multiple visa to Japan before the epidemic, and she thought that "she has many experiences in Japan, so she can go through simplified procedures."
As a result, she sadly found herself thinking too much, "The only way to simplify is to have been to Japan twice in the past three years, and as for our inability to leave the country in the past three years, the Japanese government thinks that they have nothing to do with it." ”
After the "tightening" of Japan's visa policy, whether the visa can be issued smoothly seems to be a difficult problem with an uncertain answer, and Ai Yu needs to wait until the visa is issued before daring to buy a ticket.
In addition, while airfares have been falling, prices for Japanese hotels and travel services have skyrocketed, surprising some Chinese tourists.
Fortunately, the Japanese visa did not expire, but Hou Jingyi compared the Tokyo hotel booked on Ctrip in 2019 and found that the hotel price has increased by nearly 30%-40%.
"In 2019, The Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo 4500 yuan, now 8000 yuan+; Park Hyatt Tokyo 4,000 yuan in 19 years, now 7,000 yuan +; 19 years Tokyo Andaz 4000 yuan +, now 6000 yuan +; Prince Gallery has seen the strongest price increase, 3,000 yuan in 19 years, and now 7,000 yuan + all year round. ”
Friends in Japan told Hou Jingyi that it was caused by too much money sent by Japan, and since July last year, the Japanese government has subsidized 11,000 yen per person per day for tourist accommodation nationwide, which has made hotel prices rise all the way to the sky.
Travel prices in Japan have skyrocketed, and some Chinese tourists who have been attracted to Japan for a long time have expressed that they can't afford to go.
He Peipei pointed out to the travel industry that judging from the trend of Japan's visa policy is still tightening and hotel prices are rising, the Japanese government's attitude is actually very clear recently, "Poor travel is not welcome, but I only hope that the more guests who have the strength to throw money, the better." ”
03
As a major tourism country, the tourism industry accounts for 7.3% of Japan's GDP, which is one of the pillars of Japan's economy, and its ability to absorb gold far exceeds the export income of electronic components and the export income of steel.
Before the pandemic, the number of tourists visiting Japan from Chinese mainland ranked first among countries and regions.
In 2019, 9.59 million Chinese mainland tourists traveled to Japan, accounting for 30% of overseas Japanese visitors, and 40% of their spending.
Compared with 2019, when the number of visitors to Japan reached an all-time high of 31.88 million, the number of visitors to Japan in a single month is still less than 70% recently, and the missing 30% may come from Chinese mainland.
However, data released by the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) on April 19 shows that there are fewer tourists visiting Japan, and the consumption of tourists visiting Japan in 2023 is still expected to return to pre-pandemic levels due to the increase in per capita consumption unit price.
According to JNTO data, the per capita travel expenditure of tourists visiting Japan in January~March 2023 was 212,000 yen (about 18,300 yuan), an increase of 30% compared with the actual travel expenditure in 2019, just to compensate for the 30% decrease in the number of tourists.
In this regard, Noboru Kiuchi, executive economist of Nomura Research Institute, said: "Inbound travel spending in Japan in 2023 is likely to exceed 5 trillion yen, up from 4.8 trillion yen before the epidemic."
Fewer tourists, the same travel expenditure, behind the factors that high-net-worth tourists can return to the Japanese tourism market earlier, and factors such as the depreciation of the yen are gradually pushing up the unit price of tourist consumption.
Prior to this, the Japanese government had proposed that it would no longer rely solely on the number of tourists, but would increase the spending per person of tourists visiting Japan from 159,000 yen (about 8,230 yuan) in 2019 to 200,000 yen, and increase the length of single stay of tourists outside the three metropolitan areas by 10%.
The Japanese government's view is that the reason why it no longer wants to be obsessed with the number of tourists visiting Japan is because it has learned the lesson of the pre-epidemic flood of tourists in a specific area, which led to the pollution of tourism in that area.
In Japan, "tourism pollution" is also known as "overtourism", which refers to the phenomenon that the increase in tourists has negatively affected the lives of residents, the natural environment, and the protection of cultural relics.
"Therefore, Japan wants to attract some high-net-worth tourists as much as possible and achieve the purpose of revitalizing the Japanese economy by dispersing tourists to various places, and it can not affect the normal life of residents in tourist areas." He Peipei said.
Before the epidemic, He Peipei's company basically did not receive any money on outbound travel, and the colleagues around him had already scattered and changed careers, and many people sold insurance.
However, in the past two months, the boss plans to recall the old staff. "After all, the last thing China lacks is rich people, and high-end outbound tourism has been suppressed for 3 years, and once there is an opportunity, it will quickly explode."
Suddenly, like a spring breeze overnight, after the hit of "Slam Dunk", Japanese tourism seems to have become an opening method that matches youth.
He Peipei disclosed that since April 20, the mobile phone has been flooding with customer news. "It's all about visas. By the time I finished all the messages, it was almost 3 a.m. ”
Japanese tourism-related companies are also very optimistic about the prospects of the Chinese market, and Isato Wakabayashi, director of J.Front Retailing, which owns Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Store, said bluntly: "With the increase in direct flights to and from Chinese mainland, there is still room for growth in the future."
This article He Peipei is a pseudonym
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