Amid the prolonged recession, taxi drivers, travel agencies and restaurateurs have been racking their brains to come up with ingenious ways to tempt consumers and companies to loosen their purse strings.
Many such desperate efforts go unrewarded. Some enterprises meanwhile are either unfazed or are enjoying a boom amid the slump. Travel agencies, which had long enjoyed sales increases thanks to the overseas trip boom, are suffering setbacks this year.
Even at Nippon Travel Agency Co., one of the nation's major travel agencies, applications for overseas trips over the yearend holidays have dropped 4 percent from last season. "We are having more applications for domestic tours, such as those to hot-spa resorts. But the prices of those trips are much cheaper than those of overseas trips," a spokesman for the agency said.