Tokyo Tops the Searches and Seoul the Bookings, but Japan's Hotels Are Fuller

Amadeus data as of 27 October 2026 puts Tokyo first among the cities most searched for airline travel worldwide in November, and fourth among the cities most booked. Seoul is fifth in searches and first in bookings. Osaka (ninth) and Shanghai (tenth) are in the top ten for searches and absent from the top ten for bookings. The figures come from Amadeus's Hospitality Market Insights Report for November 2026, which ranks cities and publishes no volumes.

The ranks support one claim. Tokyo has more searches than Seoul, and Seoul has more bookings than Tokyo, so Seoul turns a search into a booking at a higher rate. They cannot support the stronger version, that Asian travellers search Tokyo and then book Seoul. The regional lists in the same report rank a different thing, and the hotel figures for the same month point the other way. What follows sets out what the data shows, what it leaves open and why Seoul has had such a strong year.

What a search-versus-booking ranking measures

Amadeus's Destination Getaway data compares the cities travellers search for with the cities they book, for travel in a given month. On the worldwide page, the report calls Tokyo "the most searched destination but the fourth most booked." The booked top ten reads Seoul, New York City, London, Tokyo, Bangkok, Paris, Taipei, Los Angeles, Delhi and Hong Kong. The searched top ten reads Tokyo, Bangkok, London, New York City, Seoul, Paris, Delhi, Hong Kong, Osaka and Shanghai. Only London (third) and Paris (sixth) hold the same place in both.

The pages reviewed do not say how large the sample is, whether it covers all airline bookings or the share passing through Amadeus systems, or where travellers start from. They cover one travel month, with bookings counted on 27 October. A city whose visitors tend to book late would look weaker in that snapshot than it will once November arrives. Amadeus has not been asked about sample or method.

The regional lists complicate the picture

Amadeus also publishes lists headed "inbound" for Greater China and for the rest of Asia Pacific, and Seoul is first for bookings in both. It is tempting to read those as more evidence of Seoul's pull on Asian travellers. The report's wording suggests otherwise. On its US page the equivalent list is described as the "top 3 origin cities traveling to the U.S.", and the Greater China year-on-year list covers searches "into China". If the regional lists work the same way, they rank the cities travellers depart from, and Seoul's lead shows it as a leading starting point for trips into those regions, with no bearing on where Asian travellers choose to go. The pages reviewed do not define the term for these two regions.

The results inside those lists matter either way. In Greater China, Seoul is first for both searches and bookings, so that list shows no search-to-booking gap for Seoul at all. Tokyo moves from seventh in searches to second in bookings, which Amadeus calls "the strongest uplift from search to booking" on the page. In Rest of Asia Pacific, Seoul rises from second to first and Tokyo from fourth to second. In the Europe list, Tokyo goes from fourth to second and Seoul from fifth to fourth. In all three, Tokyo gains at least as many places as Seoul. The worldwide list is the only one of the four where Tokyo falls, and the report does not reconcile the two views.

Korea's arrivals have risen on a documented run of policy and demand

South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism counted about 15.05 million international visitors from January to August 2026, up 21.6 per cent on the same period of 2025, with August alone reaching about 2.25 million. Card spending by those visitors rose 48.5 per cent to KRW14.018 trillion. By January to September the total was 17.11 million, up 21.5 per cent, and on 27 October the count passed 2025's full-year record of 18.94 million, according to the ministry figures reported by The Korea Herald. The ministry credits the spread of Korean culture, more flights and eased visa rules.

China is the largest single contributor in that reporting: 5.47 million mainland Chinese visitors from January to September, with Greater China up 29.1 per cent. Korea began allowing visa-free entry to Chinese tour groups on 29 September 2025, with an end date then set at 30 June 2026. A waiver of the visa application fee for group tourists from six countries including China was extended on 1 July 2026 to 31 December 2026; the status of the visa-free scheme after 30 June has not been confirmed. Japanese visitors to Korea rose 16.9 per cent to 3.12 million over the nine months.

Japan's figures run the other way, for reasons its tourism agency attributes to specific causes. The Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) recorded 3,103,700 arrivals in September 2026, down 5.0 per cent, and 30,730,200 from January to September, down 2.9 per cent. Arrivals from China fell 44.5 per cent in September to 430,800. JNTO cited typhoon-related flight cancellations, higher air ticket prices and a large reduction in flights from China. Travellers from South Korea were the largest group, at 842,300, up 25.6 per cent. On 1 July 2026, per Jiji Press, Japan raised its departure tax from 1,000 yen to 3,000 yen per person, charged on both foreign and Japanese travellers, with the revenue directed to overtourism measures. The wire report says "Wednesday" and the date is inferred from its 29 June dateline. Nothing in these sources links the tax to booking behaviour.

Japan's hotel numbers show no retreat

Amadeus's Demand360 hotel data, as of 27 October, has Tokyo at 70 per cent occupancy on the books for November, the highest in Rest of Asia Pacific and, in the report's words, "trending moderately ahead of last year." Osaka stands at 64 per cent and Seoul at 63 per cent, and Amadeus says both are "pacing well ahead of the last two years' occupancy levels." Across Amadeus's wider Asia region, November occupancy on the books is 42 per cent, against 44 per cent a year earlier. Three Japanese and Korean cities are well above that average.

Osaka shows the gap most clearly. It is absent from the worldwide top ten for bookings while holding the second-highest occupancy among the cities charted. Late flight bookings, arrivals through other cities and hotel reservations made well ahead could each explain it, and the data cannot say which. Wherever a traveller's flight was booked, Tokyo's November rooms are the fullest in the region.

Why the gap may matter less than it looks

Three points limit how much weight the airline ranking can carry.

1. Scale. By each country's own count, Japan received 30.73 million foreign arrivals from January to September 2026 and Korea 17.11 million, so Japan remains about 1.8 times larger. Korea's lead is in growth, at +21.5 per cent against -2.9 per cent. The Amadeus bookings list sits awkwardly beside those totals, which is a reminder that a sample of airline bookings for one month is not a count of visitors.
2. Cause. Japan's decline is concentrated in one source market. China's 44.5 per cent fall in September sits against record months for South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and India, among others, in JNTO's data. That is consistent with a shift in one corridor, and shows no general loss of appeal.
3. Hotels. Occupancy on the books is a different measure from airline bookings, and it favours Japan. If Tokyo travellers were quietly switching to Seoul, rooms in Tokyo would be expected to lag. For November they do not.

The real test is journey-level data: whether the people who searched Tokyo went on to buy Seoul. Amadeus does not publish it, and no source reviewed for this piece does. What the evidence supports is narrower than the thesis. Seoul converts searches into bookings better than Tokyo in the worldwide airline ranking for November 2026, Korea has the stronger growth, and Japan has the fuller hotels. Whether Seoul is taking travellers from Tokyo or adding new ones cannot yet be established.

What to watch

The next few months should show whether November was a single month or the start of a pattern. Three checks are available against named sources.

1. Amadeus's next Hospitality Market Insights Report: whether Seoul remains first for bookings, and whether Tokyo's fourth place for bookings rises or falls against first place for searches.
2. JNTO's monthly releases for October to December: whether the January to September decline of 2.9 per cent widens, and whether arrivals from China recover. Korea's ministry projects the 2026 total to pass 20 million in the third week of November, which its own November count will confirm or not.
3. Korea's visa policy after 31 December 2026, when the group visa fee waiver is due to lapse, and how Japan allocates the departure tax revenue, which the Japanese government has projected at 130 billion yen for fiscal 2026.