Car rental companies in Japan have figured out why some customers are returning their vehicles with barely a mile on the clock. Rather than travel from point A to B, as many as one in eight “drivers” are using their rental cars to take a nap, catch up on work or even brush up their language skills, according to industry surveys.
AirBnB suffered a major blow when Japan’s main tourism body sharply restricted home-sharing, forcing AirBnB to eliminate four-fifths of its 60,000 listings in Japan. The experience illustrates the country’s hesitant approach to the sharing economy, in which people rent goods and services from one another, usually through internet platforms. The sharing economy’s value in Japan is at most ¥1.2trn yen ($11bn), compared with $229bn for China.
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Japanese automotive giant Toyota has made a strategic investment in South East Asia taxi-hailing service Grab.
The so-called sharing economy has spread to a variety of fields such as cars and homes, and Japan has seen another rising trend in recent years—bicycles.
A growing number of municipalities and private firms are providing bikes to gauge whether such services will catch on.
According to NTT Docomo Inc., which has been teaming up with municipalities to offer a bike-sharing service on an experimental basis, its bicycles were used about 1.8 million times in fiscal 2016, which ended March 31, up from 20,000 in fiscal 2012.
Airbnb plans to introduce a search tool designed for business travellers. The feature will allow professionals to filter homes and apartments that Airbnb has deemed Business Travel Ready.
To qualify, the dwelling must have a desk, Wi-Fi, self-check-in through a doorman or digital lock and various amenities you'd expect at a hotel, like free shampoo, a hairdryer and iron.
In 2016, the number of people using the site for business purposes tripled and is expected to quadruple this year, said David Holyoke, the head of Airbnb's business travel division.
