is a

travel agency A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destinati ...

based on the fifth floor of Trust Tower in Kamiya-cho, Tokyo in Kamiyacho, Minatoku,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, specializing in low-cost package tours. The company was founded as International Tours Co., Ltd. in 1980 by Hideo Sawada, born in 1951, and renamed "H.I.S." in 1990. In Japan, H.I.S. has 303 branches throughout the country and a global network of 185 branches in 124 cities abroad. H.I.S. holds a majority stake in Orion Tour,

Asia Atlantic Airlines Asia Atlantic Airlines ( th, เอเชีย แอตแลนติก แอร์ไลน์ส, was a charter airline headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. It was a subsidiary of the Japanese travel agency H.I.S. History Asia Atlantic A ...

and a minority stake in

Skymark Airlines () is a Japanese low-cost airline headquartered at Haneda Airport in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan. It operates scheduled services with a main base at Haneda Airport, but is also the dominant carrier at Kobe Airport, and the only Japanese airline offerin ...

. It owns two hotels in Australia, one called Watermark Hotel and Spa on the

Gold Coast, Queensland The Gold Coast is a coastal city in the state of Queensland, Australia, approximately south-southeast of the centre of the state capital Brisbane. With a population over 600,000, the Gold Coast is the sixth-largest city in Australia, the na ...

and the Watermark Hotel Brisbane, and a cruise company called Cruise Planet. Hideo Sawada bought an interest in the

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...

n agricultural Khan Bank and believes Japanese tourism to Mongolia will increase. Sawada Holdings Co., Ltd also owns 40% of the shares of the Russian bank Solid Bank. The Henn na Hotel owned by H.I.S. Co . in Sasebo,

Nagasaki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,314,078 (1 June 2020) and has a geographic area of 4,130 km2 (1,594 sq mi). Nagasaki Prefecture borders Saga Prefecture to the northeast. N ...

, has been recognized by Guinness World Records as “the first robot-staffed hotel” in the world, according to the chief of the

Huis Ten Bosch Huis ten Bosch ( nl, Paleis Huis ten Bosch, ; English: "House in the Woods") is a royal palace in The Hague, Netherlands. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch monarch; the two others being the Noordeinde Palace in The Hague a ...

theme park. Henn na Hotel, meaning "strange hotel" in Japanese, opened to the public in July 2015. This high class robot hotel has 144 rooms and 186 robotic employees, some of which are multilingual (Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean). The aim of Henn na Hotel as proposed by Hideo Sawada is that by "having robots in charge of the reception and placing robots everywhere, we aim to make it the most efficient hotel in the world" by reducing manpower.

Affiliations

International Air Transport Association, Japan Association Of Travel Agents

Subsidiaries and Affiliates

: :Travel business (75) :ORION TOUR Co.,LTD :H.I.S. INTERNATIONAL TOURS　(NY) INC. :Hotels (10) THE WATERMARK HOTEL GROUP PTY. LTD. :Theme Park (14) HUIS TEN BOSCH Co.,Ltd :Other (11) Kyusyu Sangyo Kotsu Holdings Co.,Ltd. :GROUP MIKI HOLDINGS LIMITED :Japan Holiday Travel :Ohshu Express Ltd. :Cruise Planet Co., Ltd. :Merit Travel Group :Jonview Canada :Red Label Vacations (redtag.ca, itravel2000.com) :Flyhub

H.I.S. world network

Europe

*Istanbul, Turkey Huis Ten Bosch - 01

*Baku, Azerbaijan *Rome and Milan, Italy *London, Great Britain *Paris and Nice, France *Frankfurt, Germany *Madrid and Barcelona, Spain *Wien, Austria *Zurich, Switzerland *Moscow, Russia *Athens, Greece

North America

*New York *California *Hawaii *Mexico *Canada *Cancun

South America

*São Paulo, Brazil

Asia

*South Korea *Hong Kong *Singapore *Bangladesh *Maldives *Bangkok *Indonesia *Malaysia *Vietnam *Myanmar *Mongolia *Philippines

Oceania

*Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Gold Coast & Cairns, Australia *Auckland & Christchurch, New Zealand *Nadi, Fiji

Sources

In Mongolia, a Tilt Toward a Free Market
" ''New York Times'', James Brooke and Jargal Byambasuren, October 21, 2003

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.his.co.jp/english/ Travel agencies Service companies based in Tokyo Transport companies established in 1980 Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Travel and holiday companies of Japan Online travel agencies 1980 establishments in Japan