Mainland bookings still low at JTB
| • | Japanese travel a sore spot in economic forecast |
Bloomberg News Service
JTB Corp., Japan's biggest travel agent, said reservations for trips from Japan to the U.S. Mainland are less than a third of the level they were a year ago, the Daily Yomiuri reported.
Travel to domestic locations other than Okinawa, the island where most U.S. military bases in Japan are located, has risen 20 percent, the newspaper said, citing unnamed officials with the closely held company.
Japanese travel agents are discounting trips to the United States because of slumping demand since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the crash in New York of an American Airlines flight this month that killed all 260 people on board.
Kinki Nippon Travel Co., which in January will merge with Nippon Travel Agency Co. to create Japan's No. 2 travel company, said reservations for travel from Japan to the United States, not including Hawai'i, during the October-December period are a fifth of the level they were a year ago, the Daily Yomiuri reported.
