Booking.com’s Luiz Rodrigues on Diversifying Japan’s Inbound Market

From Brazil to Booking.com: A Career Path Fueled by a Passion for Travel

What road led you to your present position as Regional Manager for Booking.com?

I’m Brazilian, and I was sent to Japan by my previous tech company for a short assignment. I enjoyed everything here, and the food and the culture spoke to my heart, so I decided to stay for a while. Though I miss Brazil, Japan became a home for me. The travel industry had always been something that fascinated me, and three years ago, I was able to join Booking.com, where I am working on strategies to convey the appeal of Japan to more travelers around the world, and encourage them to visit, while placing particular importance on maintaining relationships with various partners in the accommodation industry. It is one of the main priorities for the Japanese government, and as the leading global online travel agencies in this field, I believe we can play a major role in helping achieve this ambition.

From what overseas regions does Booking.com do the most inbound business to Japan?

Our top inbound source is Europe—Germany, France, Italy, the traditional countries—and the U.S.. But we also see a good share of bookers from Taiwan, Korea, and China. And recently we’re seeing a trend of middle-class Southeast Asians eager to explore overseas coming here as well.

You joined after the pandemic, as inbound tourism was starting to explode again. What kind of impact did that have on your business?

We called it rebound travel, and it is still very strong. Even the recent geopolitical instability is having no impact on travel, which remains one of the most important areas for global consumers. Japan plays a pivotal role as it is the leading market overall in Asia. We just heard that the first half of the year saw a record number of more than 21 million inbound tourists to Japan. And while, the number of visitors are especially high in Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, we are seeing increasing searches for regional areas.

What kind of areas are visitors looking for?

Right now, for example, they are searching places like Takayama, Hyogo prefecture, Sendai, and Hokkaido—places that have not traditionally been visited, especially for this time of year. We are excited because we believe that in order to help Japan achieve the annual target of 60 million tourists by the year 2030, one of the key factors is diversifying the destinations.

How can you help push people to visit a wider variety of destinations?

My role is to be a kind of ambassador in two areas. One is promoting Japan and increasing global awareness—not only of new regional destinations beyond the traditionally popular ones, but also authentic experiences and adventures. The other area I’m responsible for is connecting with our accommodation partners, from big hotel chains to traditional ryokan. We try to support them develop the strategies they need to attract the type of travelers they are looking for.

The Challenge: Spreading Tourism Beyond Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto

Can you give some specific examples?

On the business side, we provide our accommodation partners with a lot of tools, including translation support for 45 languages, content, and customer service support to prepare them to receive tourists. For the consumer, we promote, for example, onsen, ryokan and omotenashi culture. We show the uniqueness that Japan brings to the table. Inbound tourists from Europe and the US tend to stay longer in Japan, so they are interested in new destinations and new experiences—unique things that they’ve seen in movies or TV series or heard about. Japan has so many different inspirations and interests. There is, of course, the gastronomy that ranges from expensive kaiseki to bowls of ramen. Another new and exciting global trend is toward connecting with nature, adventure tourism and wellness, areas in which Japan has much to offer. In Hokkaido, for example, where most tourists have come for the skiing, we are seeing people exploring the rest of the island—even going to Furano in the summertime to enjoy the lavender fields.

Just on a personal note, do you have a favorite, off-the-beaten track place?

Recently I went to Amami Oshima for the first time. The vibe was very much slow paced, fitting a regional countryside, and the food was amazing. It’s the kind of place I like to suggest to my friends. My preference these days is to find off-peak destinations where I can enjoy a slow pace and take time to really connect with the location.

There is an issue that is having an increasing impact on Japanese society, and that is overtourism. Do you have any strategies to deal with this problem?

While everyone in our industry is concerned about overtourism, we see it as an important opportunity to encourage travelers to visit rural areas. One of the answers is to create more options for people to travel, which has to do with seasonality, availability and destination options. Our approach includes empowering our partners to understand the overall market situation. We can see, for example, that there is an overall slowdown on demand during the summer and see that reflecting in pricing. Now is a great time for travelers to get great value at luxury hotels. In this way we try to use our data to help partners make more sustainable decisions on when they should be doing promotions to bring tourists during the off-peak seasons.

What’s Ahead: Sustainability, Inclusivity, and the AI Revolution in Travel

Let’s talk about your company’s annual travel trend forecast. This year it points to three strong trends: sustainable travel, travel by the LGBTQ community, and the use of AI.

Data is the core DNA of Booking.com. We do a huge amount of research with customers to discover these travel trends. One thing we saw on our last survey is that customers struggle to find sustainable options, and LGBTQ-friendly choices. On our last survey, 84% of the travelers saw sustainability as an important component of the travel decisions. That means that people are looking to deliver a positive impact on their destination, and are looking for different options to incorporate that. We have been working with accommodation partners to increase awareness and provide training on these issues. For our sustainability certification, we ask accommodation partners to get certification from the proper authorities, and once they do, we give them our own certification. The required standards depend a lot on the location, of course, since even garbage disposal rules in Tokyo, for example, can be very different depending on which part of the city you’re in. The main focus is to look at how we can contribute to the environment and getting partners to understand their impact on it. It can be something as small as providing disposable plastic toothbrushes, which is a perk that probably doesn’t have an effect on someone’s travel decisions.

And your Travel Proud initiative?

Travel Proud is a certification for accommodation partners that focuses on inclusivity. It helps them learn how to deal with a couple made up of two men, or bathing areas for trans people, for example. Last year, we brought in LGBTQ global influencers who shared their perspectives on what they consider when making travel decisions, such as, “Is this a safe place for me to go?” When the partner is certified, then we also provide merchandising on our platform so customers can filter by LGBTQ-friendly properties, or sustainably certified ones.

Then of course there is AI, which you’ve already mentioned having an affect in many areas of your business.

We used to talk about AI being something for the future, but AI is here. In one survey, 91 percent said they were excited about using AI. Some 89 percent want to use AI in future travel planning, and two in three have already used AI in some aspect of travel. We have a tool that we call AI Trip Planner, where you can chat with the tool and say, for example, “I’m landing in Japan, but I want to really experience something different. Where should I go?” But we also are focusing on using AI for a seamless booking experience, from choosing the destination, to finding accommodations, to transportation choices. Normally those choices would be across different services, so when things go wrong—such as a flight delay—everything becomes a kind of nightmare. But AI will offer a seamless way not only to book all of this, but will support you with what is needed when changes have to be made. AI will help us provide a better journey and a better customer experience, and it will happen globally.

How else do you see AI impacting inbound tourism in the future?

AI understands that over tourism exists, and it will help solve the problem by spreading people around. But it will also impact the local businesses. People ask me how feasible is it for a ryokan owner to use AI. I tell them that it’s similar to e-mail. A decade ago, most ryokan in the countryside didn’t have e-mail, and you had to make reservations by phone. Now you can book almost all of them by email. We’ve been partnering with organizations like the Ryokan Association and local governments to ease their transition into the new world using the technology that we have been investing in. Allowing them to participate in the benefits of this top global technology increases awareness and access to these regional areas. And customers are able to get experiential content and accommodations in places like Yakushima or Shikoku. There are a lot of regional areas suffering from the population decline or having other economic struggles that can really benefit from in influx of tourists. It’s a win-win situation, and it is a very exciting time for travelers and for us in the travel industry.
　

Profile
As Regional Manager of Japan at Booking.com, Luiz Rodrigues oversees Japan, managing business growth, operations and strategy. Luiz joined the company in June 2022 after 8 years in leadership roles at Groupon, including Director of Sales Strategy for APAC and General Manager in Japan. An entrepreneur at heart, he also founded two startups, including Centro Educational Horizonte, which served thousands of students in Brazil.