Inside Travel is exploring a rollout of its strategy for driving tourism to lesser-known regions in Asia after strong results for its brand InsideJapan.
The tour operator launched its ‘undertourism’ strategy in 2025, aiming to double room nights to 1,000 across five under-visited Japanese regions: Yamaguchi, Nagasaki, Toyama, Nagoya and Aomori.
It beat that target, with one-in-ten trips that year featuring one of the regions and Toyama proving the most popular. The strategy also generated more than £267,000 of visitor spending locally.
Buoyed by the results, InsideJapan more than doubled its 2026 target to 2,500 room nights. It has already hit 75% of that goal, with one-in-five trips featuring one of the regions.
Inside Travel is now looking at applying the approach to InsideAsia destinations, including South Korea, India, Vietnam and Thailand.
Inside Travel Head of Impact Rob Moran said: “We wanted to demonstrate that undertourism could be more than an idea – that a tour operator could actively influence where people travel and, in doing so, help destinations battle urban migration and preserve culture while improving the experience for travellers.
“After the success of 2025, we wanted to build on momentum and grow positive impact and so more than doubled targets for 2026 to 2,500 room nights across our five regions. Our latest figures for August show that we have hit 73% of the target with one-in-five trips now including these incredible destinations. The strategy also demonstrates commercial success”.
Inside Travel Co-Founder Simon King added: “When InsideJapan began 25 years ago, Japan was a very different tourism destination. Today, the challenge is not encouraging people to discover Japan – it is helping ensure that the benefits of that growth are shared more widely and that the experience of Japan continues to be special.
“Our Undertourism strategy is about using our influence as a tour operator. By encouraging travellers to trust us and look beyond the obvious places, we are providing a better cultural experience while supporting communities that genuinely want and need tourism.
“Our latest Impact Report shows that responsible business is not something separate from what we do. It is increasingly becoming fundamental to how we design our trips, work with our partners and think about the future of travel.”
