The JTB Group, the largest tour operator in Japan, buys ‘made in the Costa del Sol’ technology

JTB Business Innovators Corp. (JBI) will exclusively distribute our booking engine and revenue management solutions in Japan

JTB Business Innovators Corp., the innovation division of the JTB Group (Japan’s largest tour operator) has confirmed their interest in our technological solutions through a collaboration agreement that will be unveiled soon. After months of negotiations, JBI will exclusively distribute our booking engine and revenue management tools in the Japanese market, two of the most noteworthy being Price Seeker and Rate Check.

Initial Contact

We established contact with the JTB Group in June 2018, together with the Trade Missions organized by the Málaga Chamber of Commerce (The Spanish Chamber of Commerce) and the Spanish Tourism Office in Tokyo, and co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund, which aims to disseminate and promote the export of technological products and services from Spain, more specifically from the Málaga province, to other strategic markets.

At that point, the JTB Group already expressed its admiration for the Spanish tourism development model. They admitted they could learn a lot from it, particularly, from the undeniable contribution of technology in tourism. Subjected to an almost obligatory digitalization process, they affirmed their desire to internalize this model and adapt it to their country in order to improve their capacity to captivate the tourists’ interest in Japan.

It is no wonder that, according to the most recent estimate of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Spain ranks second worldwide, following France, in terms of number of international tourists in 2018 with a total of 82.6 million. This represents a 0.9% increase compared to the previous year. The United States comes in at third place.

Seminar in Tokyo: “How accommodation business change post 2020 to 2030”

The communication between the two parties has not wavered since then. Last March 2019, Kanko Keizai Shimbun, an important leader in the Japanese tourism business, spoke at the seminar organized by JBI at the Tokyo Intl. Forum, which brought together more than 130 executives and managers of Japanese hotel establishments. The event was graced with the outstanding presence of our CEO, Gina Matheis. In addition to being part of the “How accommodation business change post 2020 to 2030” discussion panel, she also led the conference entitled “Tourism and Tech Trends: past, present and future“, which entailed a tour on the current situation of direct hotel sales in Europe and a thorough analysis focused on the important contribution of online direct bookings to Spain’s prominence in the global tourism scene.

The future of Paraty Tech in the Asian market

The present situation paints a very optimistic picture of our future place in the Asian market. Currently, there are already more than 50 Ryokans using our booking engine as a result of the agreement signed with Bear Luxe Japan, a B2B project that sells tourism products and experiences, such as luxurious and elegant accommodation options.

Furthermore, with the endorsement of a group as influential as JTB and the technological quality of our products and services, everything leads us to believe that this is the right path to follow. We are heading east to arouse interest and build the trust of the decision makers in the hospitality sector. We are proud to be able to extrapolate our direct sales reinforcement model to other markets.