Glenn Fogel

Yoshihisa Yamada, Chief Financial Officer, Director & Senior Executive Officer, Rakuten Inc and Vice Chairman & Director, Rakuten Travel, and and Glenn Fogel, Head of Worldwide Strategy and Planning, Executive Vice President-Corporate Development, Priceline Group will open the event with their insights on what’s driving e-commerce and online travel and talk about their plans for expansion. 

Both companies finished 2012 with a rise in profit, with Priceline showing the more robust performance. For the year ended Dec 31, 2012, Rakuten Inc reported net sales of JPY 443,474 million (USD4.6 million), up 16.7% compared to 2011. Operating profit was JPY 72,259 million, up 2.1% compared to 2011.

For full-year 2012, the Priceline Group had gross travel bookings of $28.5 billion, a 31.4% increase compared to 2011. Gross profit for the Group in 2012 was $4.1 billion, a 32.6% increase from the prior year. Its international operations contributed full-year gross profit of $3.6 billion, a 38.8% increase versus the prior year.

WIT Japan, scheduled to return to Hotel Nikko, Tokyo, on May 24, will field an A-list of speakers ranging from top global and regional brands to leading local names in Japan’s travel industry.

“Last year’s inaugural WIT built a bridge between Japan online travel and the rest of the world; this year we want to break down walls because we feel the lines have blurred so much that the only thing that matters is how we all raise professionalism to look after our customers and we need to have real conversations for real change to take place,” said Yeoh Siew Hoon, editor and founder of WIT.

One clear wall that’s been breached is mobile vs browser – up to 33% of travel search queries on Google are now done on smartphones in Japan – and about a third of revenues from the large domestic OTAs come from mobile.

“If you look at 3G penetration, Japan is almost at 95%, the highest in the world, followed by Korea at 85% – and so you can expect this to have significant impact on how Japanese customers will book and plan travel in future. Overseas players could learn a lot on how Japanese players have tackled the challenges that come from such a channel shift.”

And while Japan’s dominance as APAC’s largest travel market has come to an end, ceding to China, its online leisure/unmanaged business travel market, by far the region’s largest, will sustain double-digit growth, according to the latest PhoCusWright’s Japan Online Travel Overview report, which states that by 2015, the value of Japan’s online travel gross bookings will still be more than double that of China.

Air remains Japan’s fastest-growing travel segment, fuelled by the emergence of low cost carriers. In the online area, PhoCusWright tips that supplier websites, aided by LCCs, will grow faster than online travel agencies through 2015.

A session during WIT Japan will field a panel of airline executives, from both low cost and legacy carriers, to discuss their plans and changes in the market.

One other characteristic of Japan is the dominance of traditional tour operators, despite a very tech-savvy customer base. A session called “Brick + Mortar Is Still King” will examine why consumers still love tour packages and whether the lines will start to blur with changing dynamics in the market.

WIT Japan will also field its first WIT Start-Up Pitch – entrepreneurs have to submit their entries by March 31 to be selected to pitch for the final round on May 24. There will be a coaching Bootcamp on May 23 at Venture Republic’s offices to prepare finalists for their 5-minute presentations. Coaches/judges include one of Japan’s leading VCs, Masahiko Honma, General Partner, Incubate Fund; General Partner, Corepeople Partners.

“We’re pleased to bring our start-up event to Japan,” said Siew Hoon. “There has not been a lot of travel start-up activity in Japan but we were encouraged by the fact that last year’s winner of the WIT Start-Up Pitch in Singapore was a team from Japan, Trippiece, and it shows that with a little encouragement, we might see more budding entrepreneurs take a stab at solving pain points in online travel.”

Added Kei Shibata, CEO of Venture Republic, “With the wave of cloud computing and many other disruptive technological innovations, the rise of lean start-up opportunities is becoming a clear global trend. The travel space in Japan is no exception. Now anyone, including young Japanese entrepreneurs like Ian Ishida of Trippiece, can start their travel business at much lower cost and with greater speed than ever.

“These entrepreneurs are often aggressive, passionate and tech savvy “young guns” but have no prior experience in the industry and real business management, just like myself when I started up Travel.jp 12 years ago.

“With WIT Japan Bootcamp, I hope to bridge these ambitious young guns and this second largest travel market in the world, Japan, the rest of Asia and the rest of the global travel market.”

The winner will walk away with a US$1,000 prize and two air tickets, sponsored by Venture Republic, to attend the WIT Conference, Oct 21-23, in Singapore.

Enter the WIT Japan Start-Up Pitch here 

Programme here

Register here