31 Jul 2018

Japan Airlines to sell flight + hotel packages with domestic rail option

Japan Airlines Group’s (JAL) travel and tourism packages division, JALPAK, has launched a new web-based dynamic reservation system for customers in Australia, ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

The airline group hopes that the new packages will appeal to the growing number of Australians who choose Japan as a holiday destination as well as those who travel to Japan for business. The web-based portal offers package itineraries with flight reservations from Sydney and Melbourne to Narita in three classes of service—economy, premium economy and business class.

Customers can add a domestic flight or travel by train to see more of Japan and choose an alternative return airport.

They can select any one of JAL’s 5,000 partner hotels, and processing the booking for the package as a single transaction. The travel package also includes travel insurance and 24-hour reservation support offered by JALPAK’s agents. Customers are issued e-tickets and confirmed package itineraries by the web-based system.

The site includes access to JALPAK’s travel inspiration portals that recommend domestic Japan Explorer fare itineraries based on interests. These also include traveller guide content on culture, popular tourism spots, dining and activities.

Sport is playing a big part in Japan’s push to draw more international tourism, including the much-anticipated 2020 Olympics. But the focus has been to raise more awareness of the rich variety of experiences available and encourage visitors to spend more time in Japan before, during, after and beyond the games.

The new JALPAK web-portal targeted at Australian visitors follows the successful deployment of a similar packages web portal for visitors from Thailand. The airline has long promoted JALPAK packages through its main website and has partnered with TripAdvisor to enhance its ‘Untold Stories’ themed destination content which includes video tours.

The Australian and Thai portals were developed in-house by JALPAK, working with the JAL Group’s GDS, AXESS which partnered with Travelport for back-end systems in 2012.

Related reading from tnooz:

Drilling down on the purchasing behavior of APAC travelers (Nov2017)

GoFro nabs more cash from MakeMyTrip and others, heads to Japan (Oct 17)

Online bookings in Japan to grow, steals share from offline (Oct 2014)