There is last week's approval in the Diet of the JPY1,000 Departure Tax on every traveler leaving the country, Japanese or foreign, and the money will likely not be used for tourism at all.

The theory is that lies are more acceptable when the person telling them (or someone minding that person) ameliorates the situation afterwards by giving additional context to suggest the lie could have happened if the circumstances were different.

One of the biggest challenges for the travel agency at Japan Travel is to find places for our luxury clients to stay and memorable things for them to do. It's because of Japan's obsession with with promoting the concept of everyone being middle class.

The reality is that there is a worsening shortage of suitable candidates at suitable prices, and so companies are finding it easier to hire from the international marketplace, and use their existing staff to fill the language gaps.

Given the fact that nature has the blossoms come when they feel like it, I truly feel sorry for the many thousands of people who arrived in Japan last week, only to find that the prime spots were already done and gone.

One of the hot beds of Japanese learning and thus Japanese corporate recruiting is Pune. The city is the second largest in the state of Maharashtra and is located about 150km to the south-east of Mumbai.

Of the 20+ major European travel agencies that I personally went to visit at ITB (Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin), probably 15 of them said they wanted to be in Japan, soon.

Compared to the massive slide in tobacco users in Japan, JT's diversification efforts (not so successful) and aggressive international M&A (much more successful) are both understandable and inevitable.

I'm happy to announce that in fact the service is now up and running. If you go to japantravel.bike, you can rent a bike from any DBS bike port in Japan, with nothing more than a credit card.

Every now and again, something different comes along, and in February I was asked to hold a company startup seminar for the Ashinaga organization, which helps kids without parents.