Americas Focus.Japanese go for Hawaii and the west coast.
Hawaii and West Coast USA are "in" destinations for the Japanese - and southeast Asia is rapidly falling out of favour, according to Japan's airlines.
Traffic figures released recently by Japan Airlines (JAL) for the six months to September show the carrier's traffic to south-east Asian destinations dropped to 1.504 million passengers, down 11 per cent on the same period in 1996.
While JAL's 54 per cent decline in Hong Kong traffic accounts for a good deal of the overall drop, traffic to Malaysia, Singapore and Australia has also fallen. Airline executives are worried the forest-fire haze which affected much of southeast Asia could contribute to further declines.
The Japanese outbound market will number more than 17 million travellers this year, making it a vital lifeline for Asian hoteliers. However, All Nippon Airways executive vice president, Koji Yamashita, said Europe, particularly Italy, had surged in popularity with younger Japanese tourists, while West Coast USA package tour sales had also performed exceptionally well in the past year.
According to the JAL figures, Micronesia is another destination doing well, with an increase of 9.5 per cent to 434,300 travellers carried to Guam and Saipan for the six months to September. Europe traffic leapt by 9.7 per cent over the same period to 677,500 passengers, while US and Canadian traffic grew marginally to 1.84 million passengers.