After the peak of 2000, the Japanese outbound travel were declining, with a heavy plunge last year, mainly due to the SARS impact and the war in Iraq, the highly experienced segment (which has traveled abroad 10 times and more), is strongly supporting its recovery. The upturn in the archipelago`s GDP`s ratio, since the last quarter of 2003, gives outbound travel a boost.

The 50 & plus market segment is now the biggest travel player on the Japanese outbound holiday market. Their profile is different from their younger compatriots, in terms of activity and spending habits as well as main destination and seasonal choice.

They are much more active than other nationalities and make repeated city and site-seeing tours, rather than the simple vegetating during a classical Sun & Beach holiday. This sector represents nearly half of the highly experienced market.

The younger market is driven by the 30 years` old female segment, who is also a highly experienced traveler, but with a completely different behavior and choice criteria pattern than the more senior cluster.

The Japan Travel Monitor 2003 is now available. It is part of the World Travel Monitor proposed by IPK International, in co-operation with the Japan Travel Bureau Foundation. It gives full background of this new re-bounding market.

This unique survey allows a complete understanding of the new Japanese travelers` behavior, and allows for:

• Market research of the Japanese travel industry, its evolution over the years, benchmarking favorite destinations, possibly supported by detailed studies


• Positioning an offer or destination and selecting the product-market partnership best suited to the Japanese market


• Operational support of actions undertaken on the Japanese market and monitoring of results.


• Different selections possible for all availabilities


• Acquisition of completed information tables


• Drafting of a specific report for a particular request.