Message from the President

Contents

1: My problems with travel

2: Common traveler frustrations

3: Making travel easier

4: Bridging the travel divide

5: About me

1: My problems with travel

I love to travel. I have visited 43 countries and traveled to all of Japan’s 47 prefectures multiple times. I have traveled almost every two or three months for the past three decades. All my trips have been independent.

Despite this, I have always had the same complaints, especially when traveling abroad. My first issue is the amount of baggage I have to carry, and my second is the hassle of looking up tourist information for each destination.

My overseas trips tend to be long—anything from one week to ten days—which makes for a lot of hassle preparing baggage before I leave, transporting baggage during my trip, and washing and cleaning when I get home. I also have concerns about the CO2 emissions from checking heavy baggage every time I fly. What is more, not much tourist information is available in Japanese about the countries I visit, and it is extremely difficult to gather information in English or in the local language.

2: Common traveler frustrations

I decided to find out if other travelers felt the same as me. I found a slightly older survey from JTB (2007) that said that travelers’ number one hassle when preparing for an overseas trip was “preparing baggage” (at 22%), and their number one hassle after getting home was “cleaning up/washing” (at 48%). In a 2022 Booking.com survey, 41% of global travelers said they wanted to try to reduce their impact on the global environment, and 33% said they wanted to take action to reduce their transport-related CO2 emissions. And in a 2019 Hotels.com survey, 32% of millennial travelers identified “planning a trip” as one of their biggest stresses.

3: Making travel easier

It turned out that many travelers shared my complaints. Why was no one doing anything about it? I think that one obstacle is that travel companies still specialize in products for group tours and fail to adapt to the needs of independent travelers. This is in spite of the fact that, in 2019, the proportion of total tourism revenue from independent travelers in Japan reached 83.6% (Japan Tourism Agency’s Travel and Tourism Consumption Trends Survey), and 76.6% of travel plans such as reservations, bookings, etc., were made by individuals, overwhelmingly by independent travelers, not tours (Japan Tourism Agency’s Survey of Foreigners’ Consumption Trends in Japan).

The challenge for Japan’s tourism industry is to meet the needs of this large number of independent travelers. I established EDO KAGURA in December 2021 to do just that. Our two main services are renting travel goods (clothing etc.) and providing travel information through itineraries and so on. To begin with, we are providing our services to foreign visitors to Japan, but in the future, we plan to extend our services to Japanese people traveling abroad.

We liberate travelers from carrying baggage by renting travel items, especially clothing, locally. There is no need to pack and check baggage when you fly and no need to wash and clean after getting home. Not checking baggage also significantly reduces a trip’s CO2 emissions: the reduction in CO2 emissions from not carrying 20 kg of baggage on the average round trip between Narita, Japan, and 19 major countries is equivalent to the impact of planting 186 trees. And not checking baggage also means zero risk of losing baggage in transit.

By providing travel information in the form of itineraries, we aim to take the hard work out of travel planning. We believe this service will be particularly welcomed by travelers who value productivity. The travel database we have created already contains information on more than 20,000 Japanese tourist destinations.

4: Bridging the travel divide

I believe that by easing the burden that things like baggage and trip planning place on travelers, we can help achieve universal tourism (travel accessible to all) and universal design (design centered around accessibility). We can bridge what I have dubbed the “travel divide” (a term inspired by the “digital divide”). The travel divide refers to the phenomenon whereby the elderly, disabled people and families with young children often give up traveling, partly because of challenges like heavy baggage and a lack of travel information.

The number of travelers in Japan aged 70 and up is falling sharply: in 2019, the average number of domestic trips made by this demographic fell by 34% and international trips by 72%. Overseas family travel with infants and toddlers fell by 27%.

Our Purpose is to create a society where everyone can travel freely and happily. We want to create a society where everyone can travel, which we love.

5: About me

My first overseas trip was a 40-day solo backpacking trip to India and Nepal, inspired by books such as Kotaro Sawaki’s Midnight Express, Makoto Shiina’s India, Kappa Seo’s India, and Jinichi Kuramae’s Go Go India and Go Go Asia. I experienced huge culture shock and thought about many things, including the meaning of life.

Taiwan is the country I have visited the most. I have been there more than 30 times. I fell in love with Taiwan’s delicious food and the warmth of the Taiwanese people. I also worked in Hong Kong for about three years.

My favorite thing to do when I travel is to eat in restaurants that are crowded with locals. Most of the restaurants I visit are not high-class ones, but casual eateries such as street stalls and cafeterias.

Note that our company has been certified as a start-up company by Shinjuku City and has an office at the Shinjuku City Takadanobaba Business Incubation Support Center. We have also completed the TOKYO Foundation Station’s Plan Consulting business plan support program.

List of countries visited by the President