Japan Airlines offers tourists a chance to reduce luggage by renting clothes

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Visitors to Japan are being offered a great opportunity to travel light: pack underwear and a toothbrush but rent all your clothes upon arrival and bring an eco-friendly empty suitcase.

Passengers traveling on Japan Airlines (JAL) can rent outfits according to season, size, formality and color scheme, as part of a one-year experiment that began on Wednesday.

Under the scheme, a potential visitor to Japan can reserve his clothes for two weeks’ use up to a month in advance. Passengers can specify the purpose of their visit to ensure they have appropriate clothing.

According to JAL, the scheme is designed for passengers looking forward to opting for a “sustainable option”.

rental clothes – A combination of excess stock from retailers and second-hand clothing collected by a partner company – will be delivered to a hotel or Airbnb accommodation prior to arrival and collected to be washed and recycled at the end of the trip.

Under the current pricing structure, a woman traveling on a business trip in the scorching heat of the Japanese summer might pay ¥5,000 ($35) for a selection of five tops and three bottoms, including a linen shirt, trousers and ankle-length shorts. Skirt is included.

Anyone traveling more casual in winter can rent a wardrobe that includes fashionable faded jeans, a hoodie and a cozy down jacket for 7,000 yen.

The pilot scheme, known as “Any Wear, Anywhere”, led by JAL and trading house Sumitomo, has been introduced as an effort to promote sustainable tourism.

During the 13-month experiment, JAL will collect data on whether the scheme is resulting in an overall reduction in the weight of passengers’ bags.

The clothing rental site claims that a 10 kg reduction in a flight passenger’s luggage reduces an estimated 7.5 kg of carbon dioxide emissions. For context, a 7.5 kg reduction in CO₂ emissions is equivalent to not using a hairdryer for 78 days (based on an average use of 10 minutes per drying session).

The scheme has been launched during a period of explosive growth in visitors to Japan following the pandemic. After strictly limiting the arrival of visitors between March 2020 and October 2022, Japan has reopened its doors.

According to the government’s Japan Tourism Agency, visitors will spend an average of 50,496 yen on shopping alone in the first three months of 2023.

In May, nearly 1.9 million people visited Japan, according to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization – a 1,191 percent increase from the same month a year earlier.

The sharp resurgence in visitor numbers, which are still down about 30 percent compared to 2019, has come despite significantly fewer visitors from mainland China, which is still limiting the number of exit visas for tourists.