Inside Travel Group is exploring how its Japan ‘Undertourism’ model could extend across South Korea, India, Vietnam and Thailand after exceeding its first-year dispersal targets in the newly released 2025 Impact Report.
The B Corp-certified tour operator behind the InsideJapan and InsideAsia brands is looking to replicate the crowd-dispersal approach that steered travellers away from Japan’s overtouristed hotspots.
South Korea, India, Vietnam and Thailand are the next destinations under consideration, pointing travel advisors to where the next wave of community-focused itineraries is likely to emerge across the region.
The expansion follows the early success of InsideJapan’s ‘Undertourism’ strategy, which launched in 2025 and focused on five lesser-visited regions: Yamaguchi, Nagasaki, Toyama, Nagoya and Aomori.
How the Japan model performed
Toyama was the standout regional addition to InsideJapan trips in 2025.
Inside Travel Group chose the regions for dispersal in Japan against criteria including visitor numbers, local capacity, community appetite for tourism and accessibility for international travellers.
InsideJapan set a target of doubling room nights booked across the five regions to 1,000 in 2025 and exceeded it. One in 10 InsideJapan trips featured one of the five regions with Toyama proving particularly popular, and the strategy generated more than AUD$502,400 in visitor spending across the areas.
The operator has since more than doubled its 2026 target to 2,500 room nights. As of August 2026, InsideJapan had reached 73 per cent of that goal with one in five trips now including one of the five regional destinations.
Why the model is heading beyond Japan
Gayageum player Youngeun Cho on the InsideAsia Majestic Korea tour.
Inside Travel Group is now weighing how the strategic principles could apply across InsideAsia destinations and its range of escorted small-group tours, self-guided cultural adventures and fully tailored itineraries.
Japan, South Korea and Vietnam are all recording record international visitor numbers with tourism concentrated in a handful of well-known hotspots.
InsideAsia already offers cultural itineraries across Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Borneo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, recently adding Taiwan with seven new itineraries, giving the operator an existing footprint for Inside Travel Group’s dispersal model.
Traditional artisan handcrafts in Inami, Japan.
Inside Travel Group Co-Founder Simon King said the changing nature of tourism in Japan made the approach increasingly important.
“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,” he said.
Modern and traditional Korea on the InsideAsia Soul of Korea tour.
“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.”
What it means for selling Asia
In Delhi on one of InsideAsia’s India trips.
Inside Travel Group Head of Impact Rob Moran said the initiative was designed to test whether a tour operator could actively influence where travellers choose to go.
He added that the 2026 results point to travellers being increasingly willing to look beyond Japan’s best-known destinations, creating opportunities for communities while offering a different experience of the country.
Visiting rural Vietnam with InsideAsia.
“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,” he said.
Read the full 2025 Inside Travel Impact Report at impact.insidetravelgroup.com
KARRYON UNPACKS: With Japan, Korea and Vietnam all fielding record crowds, the appetite for quieter alternatives is only growing, and Inside Travel is signalling exactly where that product pipeline is headed. For advisors, it maps out the emerging corners of Asia where crowd-escape itineraries will land next.
AloJapan.com