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Kei Shibata, CEO of travel.jp, shares an update on the situation in Japan with WIT and urges industry colleagues to stick to, and circulate, the facts.
Q: Personally, how have you and your family been and how have you copedthis past week?
This past week, we have been staying in town working pretty much as usual. Due to the problems of public transportation and power (scheduled power down) as well as the risks of aftershocks and nuclear radiation,some companies ordered employees to stay home and/or work with different shifts and the government asked people to save power on every occasion. Wehave seen some shortages of gas, water and other emergency related goods
but people's life in Tokyo is pretty much in control now and the situation has improved everyday.
Q: Business-wise, what did it mean for you and what did you do to handlethe crisis?
We saw a big hit in demand for leisure travel, maybe down by 30 to 60% last week. At the same time, the demand for flights (both domestic and international) exploded last week, perhaps up by 70% for domestic and more than 100% for international (outbound to overseas). We believe the majority of demand came from non-Japanese people including Chinese and Koreans who wanted to leave Japan for home. So far, we have tried to aggregate information as much and as accurately as possible by keeping close contact with the OTAs and by monitoring the web.
Q: Any interesting trends you noticed in online behavior – search, social media, the use of mobile etc?
Social media played a huge role in this crisis – Twitter, Facebook, mixi... They were widely used to let families and close friends communicate efficiently (especially for the first few days after 3.11 when the mobile voice communication broke down) and to find all kinds of news and useful information related to the crisis.
Q: What are your greatest concerns going forward? Fears of impact on Japanese outbound and inbound?
Biggest concern is obviously the demand (all outbound, inbound and domestic) which may stay extremely low for a long period of time.
Q: What's the message you want to send to your travel industry colleagues abroad?
Most of the destinations in Japan including Tokyo are safe and fine. Please don't misunderstand the situation – it seems some of the overseas media have confused people overseas with poor reporting.
Q: What can we do to support Japan's travel industry on which we all depend?
Please stay updated and circulate the facts, and don't listen to rumours and hearsay.
