On May 1, 2026, JTB, Japan's largest travel group, launched the second-phase tender for its spring study tour products for fiscal year 2027, explicitly increasing the weighting of the ‘Luoyang Peony Culture Themed Study Tour Program’ in the overall evaluation from 20% to 35%. This adjustment directly affects segmented fields serving the Japanese market, including cultural tourism planning, study tour curriculum development, intangible cultural heritage collaboration, and cross-border education services, marking an accelerated shift in China-Japan study tour cooperation from broad theme packaging toward deeper cultural engagement and standardized execution.

Event Overview

On May 1, 2026, JTB Group of Japan officially released the second-phase tender announcement for its spring study tour products for fiscal year 2027. The announcement clearly states that the weighting of the ‘Luoyang Peony Culture Themed Study Tour Program’ in the comprehensive evaluation has been raised from 20% in the previous fiscal year to 35%; key evaluation dimensions include the depth of curriculum design, the actual level of participation by intangible cultural heritage inheritors, the completeness of bilingual instructional materials, and the capability to provide digitalized safety and emergency response contingency plans.

Which Sub-Sectors Will Be Affected

Study Tour Curriculum Design and Content Development Companies

The increased weighting directly strengthens the decisive role of curriculum content in tender decisions. The impact is reflected in the following: the threshold for winning bids has materially increased, and companies that only possess basic itinerary-planning capabilities will find it difficult to meet the core criterion of ‘depth of curriculum design’; they must simultaneously build a verifiable instructional logic chain (such as learning objectives—activity carriers—assessment methods) and supporting bilingual teaching materials.

Intangible Cultural Heritage Resource Operators and Collaboration Institutions

For the first time, the tender lists ‘degree of participation by intangible cultural heritage inheritors’ as an independent evaluation item, and links it directly to the 35% weighting. The impact is reflected in the following: merely providing venues or performance services is no longer sufficient; quantifiable collaboration mechanisms such as teaching qualification certification for inheritors, class-hour records, and bilingual teaching support must be established and incorporated into the evidentiary system of bidding materials.

Cross-Border Study Tour Services and Local Execution Companies

The inclusion of ‘capability for digitalized safety and emergency response contingency plans’ as a key evaluation criterion means that traditional paper-based emergency plans and manual reporting models no longer meet requirements. The impact is reflected in the following: companies must be able to connect with systems designated by JTB or provide localized digital contingency modules that comply with its data field specifications (such as real-time location, health declarations, and multilingual incident reporting interfaces), and complete third-party compliance documentation.

Bilingual Educational Material Production and Publishing Service Providers

‘Completeness of bilingual instructional materials’ has become one of the hard indicators. The impact is reflected in the following: materials cannot be limited to translation alone, but must match the cognitive logic and study tour flow of Japan's K-12 education stages; structured deliverables are required, including proof of review by native Japanese editors, tiered design for student manuals/teacher manuals, and embedded QR codes for supporting audio and video resources.

What Key Points Relevant Companies or Practitioners Should Watch, and How They Should Respond Now

Monitor the Detailed Rules of the ‘Technical Specifications for Luoyang Peony Themed Study Tours’ to Be Released Subsequently by JTB

The current announcement only lists four major evaluation directions, and has not yet disclosed detailed scoring rules, material format requirements, or interface standards for digital contingency plan systems. Companies are advised to continuously follow updates in the tender section of JTB's official website, paying particular attention to supplementary explanatory documents that may be released in the third quarter of 2026.

Focus on Building Cross-Validation Capability Across the Three Elements of ‘Curriculum—ICH—Digital Contingency Plans’

A single advantage no longer constitutes competitiveness. For example, having intangible cultural heritage resources but lacking curriculum conversion capability, or having digital systems but lacking support from bilingual teaching logic, may both lead to point losses in key items. It is recommended to first sort out the minimum viable cases (MVPs) already implemented across the three areas in existing projects, for use as supporting evidence in bidding proposals.

Differentiate Between Policy Signals and the Pace of Business Implementation

This weighting adjustment is an optimization of tender rules, not a mandatory policy or a change in market access. Business parameters such as the actual procurement scale for fiscal year 2027, regional coverage, and the upper limit of participants per group have not yet been disclosed. Companies should not immediately expand heavy-asset investment, but should instead prioritize modular capability upgrades (such as bilingual lesson-plan template libraries, SOPs for inheritor collaboration, and lightweight interfaces for contingency plan systems).

Launch in Advance Coordinated Preparation with Luoyang's Local Cultural Tourism Authorities and Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Centers

JTB clearly requires that the ‘degree of participation by intangible cultural heritage inheritors’ be verifiable. Companies are advised to proactively work with the Luoyang Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism and protection units for representative municipal-level intangible cultural heritage projects in Luoyang to produce jointly stamped explanatory documents on proposed cooperating inheritor lists, teaching content outlines, class-hour arrangements, and related matters, thereby enhancing the credibility of bidding materials.

Editorial Viewpoint / Industry Observation

显然，这一权重调整与其说是已经定型的市场转向，不如说是一个经过校准的信号：JTB正在压力测试中国供应商是否已准备好为日本学校团体提供具有文化根基、教学严谨性和运营透明度的研学产品。它反映出采购方成熟度的提升——不仅体现在主题偏好（牡丹文化）上，也体现在对可验证执行能力的要求上。从行业角度看，35%的门槛实际上筛选的是那些将‘文化’视为课程而非背景的供应商。当前更值得关注的是，JTB将如何在实践中定义‘深度’——是通过学习成果映射、非遗传承人资质认证，还是通过数字化可追溯性——以及在未来轮次中，类似的权重逻辑是否会延伸到其他区域文化主题（如西安兵马俑、杭州西湖）。

Conclusion
This adjustment by JTB to the tender weighting of the Luoyang Peony Festival study tour program essentially sends a clear capability-upgrade signal to the supply side: cultural resources must be transformed into standardized study tour products that are teachable, verifiable, and traceable. It does not confirm an immediate expansion of market scale, but rather constitutes an upfront screening focused on execution quality. At present, it is more appropriate to understand this as China-Japan study tour cooperation moving from the stage of ‘whether it exists’ to the stage of ‘whether it is good’, and the focus of enterprise response should not be on rapid expansion, but on precisely strengthening the three core capabilities of curriculum logic, intangible cultural heritage collaboration, and digital compliance.

Source Note
Main source: the public version of the ‘2027 Spring Study Tour Product Second-Phase Tender Announcement’ released by JTB Group of Japan on May 1, 2026. Areas requiring continued observation: whether JTB will release the supporting ‘Technical Specifications for Luoyang Peony Themed Study Tours’ and guidelines for connecting to digital contingency plan systems in the third quarter of 2026.