Golden Week lives up to name
By Ryoko Imaizumi
Bloomberg News Service
TOKYO — Toshiko Kibe stopped for a cup of tea and paused to reflect on her 11-day trip to Germany after hustling off an airport bus packed with travelers returning from Golden Week vacations.
"Japanese do have money, and prices are falling, so it's time to spend," said Kibe, who splashed $15,730 on three overseas vacations in the past year. "We say the economy is bad all the time, but no one is starving on the street."
The 42-year-old promotions coordinator was one of 358,800 travelers who went abroad from Tokyo during the holiday week, up 9 percent from a year earlier. After nine years of decline in household spending, attitudes like Kibe's may be gaining steam — at least if crowds at the central Tokyo terminal for airport buses are an indication.
An estimated 22.5 million Japanese traveled between April 25 and May 5, according to JTB Corp., Japan's largest travel agency, only 1.7 percent short of a record high set last year. Tourists were encouraged by discounts of around 25 percent on some domestic package holidays.
The turnout surpassed the expectations of travel agents, who feared that Golden Week spending would be squeezed by recession and lingering terrorism fears. Many trips were booked only a few weeks, instead of months, in advance.
As recently as late March, travel agents feared that this year's Golden Week would be one of the bleakest ever.
Agents saw no single reason for travelers' unexpected change of heart. Some credited pent-up demand, as many consumers canceled tours after Sept. 11, and said they were helped by increasing use of the Internet for last-minute bookings.
"As long as they don't spend too much on something luxurious, they're finding they can still afford to go to wherever they want to go," said Ryoichi Morotome, a spokesman for Kinki Nippon Tourist Co., Japan's second-largest travel agency.
Travel to Hawai'i, which was more than halved after the Sept. 11 attacks, rebounded to last year's level, and demand for tours within Asia and to Europe rose. The only bleak spot was a 55 percent fall in travel to the U.S. Mainland, said JTB spokeswoman Norie Kamiwatari.
Then there's the cabin-fever rationale offered by Hiroyuki Shibukawa, a spokesman for the Japan Association of Travel Agents: "It's spring and people who've been inside all winter were itching to get out. They put off New Year's holiday travel because they were worried about terrorism."
Overseas travel during Golden Week from Tokyo's main international airport rose 9 percent from a year earlier. Part of that increase stemmed from the opening last month of a new runway.
The surprise surge in bookings applied also to domestic travel. JTB said reservations for trips to Okinawa rose by a third from last year.
Arrivals at Okinawa rose 5.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the prefecture's government. All Nippon Airways Co., Japan's No. 2 airline, said bookings on its Okinawa flights rose 12 percent.
The downside is that hoteliers and shopkeepers have been forced to cut prices, with Japan mired in its third recession in a decade, said Tetsuhiko Yonemura of the Okinawa Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Two-night, three-day packages as inexpensive as $235, down from a low of $314 last year, helped lure tourists to Japan's southern archipelago but cut into profits, Yonemura said. "It's not good at all compared to last year," he said.
On Honshu, Japan's main island, Oriental Land Co.'s Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea and Universal Studios Inc.'s Osaka theme park attracted consumers who opted not to take long trips.
Disney attractions drew 835,000 visitors during Golden Week, 28 percent more than last year, according to police in Chiba prefecture east of Tokyo where Oriental Land's amusement parks are located.
Travel agents had expected domestic attractions to fare well, figuring that consumers would continue to cut spending and avoid overseas travel. As it turned out, folks such as Tokyo entrepreneur Yuuichi Yoshihara, 64, and his wife, Katsue, proved that at least during this year's Golden Week, Japanese are ready to venture out.
The Yoshiharas took their usual spring trip to play golf in Canada and didn't think twice about terrorism.
"I removed my nail cutter from my hand luggage," said 56-year-old Katsue Yoshihara, while pushing a cart loaded with luggage and gifts at the Tokyo bus terminal. "I wasn't worried about the whole thing."
