With Japan preparing to welcome foreign visitors for the cherry blossom season for the first time in three years after loosening COVID-19 border controls, excitement is in the air for the travel industry. Operators of popular tourist spots are rushing to ride the cherry blossom wave, adorning everything from restaurants, vehicles and digital art with shades of pink and petal designs.
E-commerce travel platform KKday said activity bookings from overseas for the March 18 to April 30 period have already hit around 50 percent of 2019 figures — the last cherry blossom season before the pandemic — with the firm holding high hopes for a complete recovery by the time blossoms hit their peak.
“We expect the figure to exceed 2019 levels,” said Kosei Obuchi, president of KKday Japan Co., the platform’s local operator. “While people tend to book hotels one or two months in advance, when it comes to activities, the vast majority do it only one month or two weeks beforehand.” Obuchi has reason to be optimistic.
KKday Japan has already toppled pre-pandemic figures this year, with bookings for the Lunar New Year holidays — Jan. 20 to 29 — around 250 percent more than 2019 levels. The firm’s recovery for January at 180 percent is also higher than the overall market, with the number of foreign visitors to Japan that month still at only 55.7 percent of pre[1]pandemic January 2019, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. Obuchi said that the company’s efforts to attract more customers by taking advantage of the digital shift during the pandemic paid off. “Customers who had gone to physical stores to (book) are now used to doing it online,” Obuchi said.
“KKday was able to successfully tap into those needs.” With 12 offices across Asia and the Pacific, including its headquarters in Taiwan, KKday offers activities and tickets at locations around the globe, but Japan is currently “the number one destination,” according to Obuchi. The JNTO data showed that South Koreans constituted the largest group of visitors to Japan in January with 565,200 travelers, followed by Taiwan at 259,300 and Hong Kong at 151,900.
Taiwanese student Li Hsin, an avid traveler to Japan who visited two to three times a year before the pandemic, was among the participants of an afternoon tea bus tour on March 5 booked through KKday.
