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New agreement links WTTC’s expanding global membership and destination network with Japan’s travel trade, Tourism EXPO Japan and outbound markets important to Asia-Pacific, Hawaii and Guam.WTTC considers the Japan market and this partnership a top priority.
MADRID/TOKYO— The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA) and Tourism EXPO Japan (TEJ) have signed a new cooperation agreement designed to connect Japan’s travel industry more closely with global tourism leaders, destinations and private-sector companies. Signed by WTTC President & CEO Gloria Guevara, JATA Chairman Yuji Hara and TEJ Executive Committee Chairperson Eijiro Yamakita, the MOU covers research, market intelligence, international events, innovation and business engagement. The partnership also creates opportunities for destinations across Asia-Pacific and worldwide — including tourism markets such as Hawaii and Guam that depend heavily on Japanese outbound travel — to strengthen relationships with Japan’s travel distribution sector. The agreement comes as WTTC rapidly expands its private-sector membership, destination partnerships and regional presence under Guevara’s leadership.
Why the WTTC-JATA Agreement Matters
On paper, the agreement covers collaboration, research, market intelligence, innovation, knowledge exchange and participation in major tourism events.
In practice, its potential goes considerably further.
It brings together WTTC’s expanding network of international tourism CEOs and destinations with an organization sitting close to the heart of Japan’s travel distribution system and with one of Asia’s most important tourism marketplaces.
WTTC said JATA currently has 1,200 full members, 326 associate members, 80 affiliate members and 137 overseas affiliate members. JATA’s overseas membership is itself global: eligible organizations include tourism boards, airlines, hotel groups, tour operators, travel agencies, cruise companies, convention organizations and other tourism businesses based outside Japan.
That makes the new relationship potentially important not only for bringing international visitors to Japan, but also for destinations seeking a larger share of the Japanese outbound market.
Tourism EXPO Japan Is a Global Marketplace
Tourism EXPO Japan, which opened today at Tokyo Big Sight, has developed into considerably more than a consumer travel show.
The 2026 event runs September 24-27, with the first two days dedicated to the travel trade and press before opening to consumers during the weekend. The event is organized by the Japan Travel and Tourism Association, JATA and Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO).
In 2025, Tourism EXPO Japan attracted 1,350 companies and organizations representing 82 countries and regions and recorded 127,677 visitors. Its business platform combines walk-in negotiations with pre-arranged meetings matching travel-industry buyers with destinations and suppliers.
This gives WTTC something particularly valuable: another direct point of engagement with travel buyers, tour operators, destination organizations and tourism companies throughout Japan and Asia.
It gives JATA and Tourism EXPO Japan, in return, greater access to WTTC’s international network of tourism CEOs, investors and destinations.
WTTC President & CEO Gloria Guevara is also appearing at Tourism EXPO Japan 2026, delivering a keynote at Tokyo Big Sight on September 24 alongside UN Tourism’s Ion Vilcu and GREEN×EXPO Association Secretary-General Masato Komura.
Hawaii and Guam Demonstrate Why Japan Still Matters
For Pacific destinations, the importance of this relationship is particularly easy to see.
Hawai’i Tourism Japan has a significant presence at Tourism EXPO Japan 2026, accompanied by 16 sub-exhibitors including hotels, resorts and attractions such as Halekulani, Outrigger Resorts & Hotels, Prince Resorts Hawaii, the Polynesian Cultural Center, Battleship Missouri Memorial and Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa.
Japan remains one of Hawaii’s most strategically important international source markets. Hawaii Tourism Authority statistics show 731,922 Japanese visitors traveled to the islands in 2025, an increase of 3.3% from 2024.
The numbers remain below Japan’s pre-pandemic performance, leaving substantial room for rebuilding a market with deep historical, cultural, aviation and business ties to Hawaii.
Guam has an even more immediate interest.
Guam Visitors Bureau statistics show Japanese arrivals reached approximately 253,600 in 2025, around 21.5% above the previous year.
Guam has consequently been investing heavily in Japan. Its January 2026 One Guam Roadshow visited Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka and included an MOU between Guam Visitors Bureau, JTB and T.P. Micronesia. Twenty-two GVB member companies participated and approximately 410 B2B meetings were conducted with Japanese travel-industry partners.
GVB also reported that its participation at Tourism EXPO Japan 2025 generated more than 120 meetings with Japanese buyers and media involving 11 Guam companies, while more than 12,000 people visited the Guam booth during the consumer days.
Guam is back at Tourism EXPO Japan this year, with hotels, resorts, retail and transportation businesses represented alongside the Guam Visitors Bureau.
This illustrates what the WTTC-JATA-TEJ agreement could eventually deliver: a bridge between global tourism leadership and the people who actually develop, package, distribute and sell travel in Japan.
A Door to Asia — and the World
The implications extend well beyond Hawaii and Guam.
JATA’s travel-agency network connects with tourism business across Korea, China, Taiwan, Southeast and wider Asia, the Hawaiian Islands, Guam and Saipan, North America, Oceania, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Tourism EXPO Japan similarly provides an international marketplace encompassing Asia, the Pacific, North America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
For destinations, particularly throughout Asia-Pacific, the new partnership could therefore provide a useful combination: access to Japanese distribution through JATA and Tourism EXPO Japan, and access to global corporate and destination leadership through WTTC.
WTTC Is on an Expansion Course
The Japan agreement also fits a much broader transformation underway at WTTC.
Since Gloria Guevara returned to lead the organization, WTTC has made membership growth, stronger regional representation and deeper destination engagement central elements of its strategy.
When announcing Guevara’s appointment as President & CEO earlier this year, WTTC Chairman Manfredi Lefebvre said more than 15 companies were already in the membership pipeline, including organizations returning to the Council. WTTC also said it intended to expand membership among SMEs as well as larger organizations.
That expansion is now visible.
New private-sector participants announced during 2026 include Allianz Partners, Ensemble Travel, Avolta and Club Med Lifestyle Group, among others. At the destination level, Switzerland Tourism, Uganda Tourism Board, the Egyptian Tourism Authority and Malta Tourism Authority have joined WTTC as Destination Partners.
WTTC has simultaneously expanded its international management structure.
The organization now operates from Madrid with regional directors covering Latin America and the Caribbean, North Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, North America and Europe. WTTC says the structure is designed to deepen relationships with members and destinations and make its research and advocacy more relevant to individual markets.
There are other indicators of renewed momentum.
A record 15 destinations across four continents formally expressed interest this year in hosting future WTTC Global Summits, including Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, India, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Bahrain, Morocco and Türkiye. Malta will host the 2026 Global Summit in October.
Taken together, the developments point to WTTC moving rapidly to reinforce its longstanding position as the global voice of the private Travel & Tourism sector while increasingly bringing destinations and public-sector partners into the same conversation.
Gloria Guevara Widens WTTC’s Reach
Guevara’s second period at the helm of WTTC is therefore developing as an expansion of both membership and geography.
The strategy comes at an important moment for international tourism.
Travel and tourism operates today in a considerably more complicated geopolitical environment than only a few years ago. Conflicts, changing visa regimes, aviation constraints, trade tensions, economic uncertainty, climate pressures and rapidly evolving technology can alter travel flows with extraordinary speed.
An organization seeking to represent this global industry consequently benefits from representation extending beyond the largest Western corporations and established tourism markets.
Expanding WTTC’s leadership presence across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Europe — while simultaneously bringing national tourism organizations and major private companies closer together — widens the range of perspectives around the table.
The JATA agreement is particularly relevant because Japan is not simply another destination market.
It is simultaneously one of the world’s major tourism economies, a major outbound source market, an aviation hub, an investment market and a gateway to Asia.
Under Guevara’s leadership, WTTC’s accelerated expansion into strategically important markets therefore has the potential to make the Council more geographically representative and more connected to the commercial realities shaping international tourism.
Japan Is Already a $343 Billion Tourism Economy
WTTC’s latest Economic Impact Research estimates that Travel & Tourism contributed US$343.1 billion to Japan’s economy in 2025, equivalent to 8.1% of GDP.
That made Japan the world’s fifth-largest Travel & Tourism economy.
The sector expanded 4.6% during 2025, compared with growth of 1.1% in Japan’s wider economy.
International travelers spent US$63.3 billion in Japan during the year, according to WTTC. That placed Japan seventh worldwide for international visitor spending, compared with 15th in 2019. International visitor expenditure was 74.9% above its 2019 level.
Such growth also creates challenges.
Overtourism concerns, regional dispersal, workforce shortages, digitalization, artificial intelligence, sustainability and the relationship between visitors and local residents are becoming increasingly important components of Japan’s tourism debate.
Those are precisely the areas where international exchange of research and best practices can make an MOU such as this more than ceremonial.
From MOU to Business
The agreement calls for WTTC, JATA and Tourism EXPO Japan to exchange research, reports, market intelligence and best practices; explore joint research; cooperate at tourism events in Japan and internationally; support digital transformation and resilience; and deepen cooperation with national, regional and city destination organizations.
It also specifically opens opportunities for JATA and Tourism EXPO Japan stakeholders to engage with WTTC members, while WTTC gains greater access to senior tourism leaders throughout Japan.
JATA Chairman Yuji Hara called the agreement a significant milestone and said cooperation between the Japanese and international private sectors could advance sustainable, long-term and inclusive tourism.
Tourism EXPO Japan Executive Committee Chairperson Eijiro Yamakita highlighted another important element: WTTC participation could increase the international presence of Tourism EXPO Japan, while Japanese participation in WTTC events could raise Japan’s profile internationally.
Guevara said the partnership would strengthen Japan’s connections with the global Travel & Tourism community while supporting innovation, technology adoption, workforce efficiency and new opportunities for businesses and destinations.
The Opportunity Goes Both Ways
That last point may ultimately be the most important.
Japan wants more international visitors and investment, but the rest of the world also wants Japanese travelers, Japanese tourism investment, Japanese technology and access to Japanese distribution.
Hawaii wants Japan.
Guam wants Japan.
Destinations throughout Southeast Asia, the Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas want greater access to the Japanese market.
At the same time, Japanese tourism companies need international partners and intelligence as outbound travel continues its recovery and the global marketplace becomes increasingly competitive.
WTTC brings global corporate leadership and an expanding destination network.
JATA brings Japan’s travel trade.
Tourism EXPO Japan brings both sides together on an exhibition floor where relationships can become contracts.
If the three organizations turn today’s MOU into sustained commercial engagement, research cooperation and reciprocal participation in their respective events, the agreement signed in Tokyo could become considerably more important than its relatively modest announcement suggests.
It could provide WTTC with a much stronger bridge into Japan and Asia while giving JATA, its members and Tourism EXPO Japan a more direct seat at the global tourism leadership table.
At a time when geopolitical fragmentation is making international cooperation both more difficult and more necessary, widening that table could become one of the more consequential elements of Gloria Guevara’s expanding WTTC.
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