Officials from destinations across Japan, travel service providers representing the latest travel styles and trends gathered at INTEX Osaka in order to showcase their offerings and give new inspiration to travelers, with a total of 156 organisations exhibiting. The travel styles on display included not just traditional tourism packages but also “workation” offerings, educational travel, micro-tourism ideas, travel tech, and many other tourism-related services. Over the course of the event’s three days, a total of 4,775 people came to the Japan Tourism Showcase and 585 business talks were scheduled between industry professionals, bringing about renewed interest, attention, and appeal to the travel industry.
The upcoming Golden Week holidays, summer vacation, and the autumn period are peak travel seasons in Japan, meaning that this exhibition was held at the perfect moment to reignite consumer demand for travel as well as to foster new connections for industry professionals. The Osaka Convention & Tourism Bureau (OCTB) had their own station within the event’s Kansai booth, and also hosted seminars to foster discussion on key travel topics.
An exhibition to reignite demand for the travel industry Although the tourism industry has taken a serious blow amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the outlook is bright with Japan’s vaccine rollout and popular stimulus programmes from local governments across the country encouraging people to travel again. Although travel to and from Japan remains difficult, travel demand within Japan is expected to rapidly recover. Additionally, travel styles and needs have greatly shifted in response to the pandemic, with travelers expecting more diverse and enhanced solutions from across different industries.
With the 2025 World Expo opening in Osaka in only three years, the region will continue to develop as Japan’s new travel gateway. All of Osaka is striving for the area to become a showcase of Japanese tourism and to serve as a hub for sending travellers from around the world to see all of Japan. With this in mind, the Japan Tourism Showcase in Osaka, Kansai was created as a joint initiative by government, economic, and travel industry circles across Osaka and the Kansai region to become a catalyst for recovery in the tourism industry.
