*HIS begins a full-scale online booking and payment service

HIS President Yoshio Suzuki revealed at an interview with the Wing Travel Weekly that HIS will begin a full-scale online selling for overseas hotels in February or March this year. The travel agency has alreadystarted full-scale online booking and payment services for international air tickets and overseas package tours on its homepage since November last year. HIS regards 2006 as a year to extend its online business further, as Suzuki also said that it intends to develop an online system for domestic travel products and add other overseas tourist elements to the booking system this year.

HIS deals with all kinds of international air tickets departing from Tokyo, its reasonable package tour product "Ciao" and tour conductor-accompanied package tour product "Impresso" on the online booking and payment service that HIS has started offering since November last year. The service requires member registration (free), and after registration members are provided "My Menu"functions to confirm booked itineraries.

This Week Headline
*HIS begins a full-scale online booking and payment service
+A customer share of online bookings reaches 15%
+Larger efforts to exploit corporate and group travel markets
*JTB forecasts all time overseas travelers for 2006
*Qantas supports whole sellers to create new styled travel products
*Japan and Korea agree to increase flight capacities between both nations
*JAL and ANA CEOs released New Year messages
*High fuel cost forces JAL to raise its domestic airfares
*Air Do will more focus on tourist demands from Tokyo
*Narita passengers for November 2005 were almost the same as a year ago
*Centrair increased international flight passengers for November 2005