Many major travel agencies are opening special offices and offering unique services ahead of the summer travel season, expecting a boost in demand for holidays from retiring baby boomers, who have extra cash to spend.

One company has opened a large branch with more than 2,000 kinds of holiday-related pamphlets on display. Another has set up special counters for railway enthusiasts, and yet another has established a branch exclusively for wealthy clients, where some tours cost millions of yen.

While an increasing number of people book air tickets and hotels via the Internet, the companies aim to attract customers with special differences and carefully arranged plans. The firms are currently readying high-priced summer and autumn tours with an eye on the baby-boomer generation.

On May 26, Kinki Nippon Tourist Co. (KNT) opened Luxe Ginza Marronnier–a special sales office for luxury tours–on the eighth floor of a building in the upscale Ginza shopping district.

The interior is furnished with high-class woodgrain furniture, a bar and separate rooms for consulting with clients. The office has no signboard and there are no pamphlets displayed inside.

The office targets the wealthy, who do not mind paying for high-quality services. Some clients often travel from major cities, such as Nagoya, to Ginza to dine at luxury restaurants and visit the office.

“We designed the office to have a relaxed mood because our clients often talk about their orders for an hour or two,” said Atsushi Saito, manager of Luxe Ginza Marronnier.

The office arranged a tour to Europe, costing 5 million yen per person, that used private jets and luxury oceanliners. It also created a tour to southern France in cooperation with art galleries, which guided clients around scenes depicted in paintings.

In Ginza, JTB Corp. and HIS Co. also have sales offices that target the rich.

A JTB official said its office in Ginza acts like an antenna “to learn the needs of people who aren’t satisfied with ordinary services.”

In May, HIS opened a section in its sales office attached to its headquarters in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, exclusively for railway enthusiasts. The sales office has a total floor space of about 3,000 square meters, and is one of the largest of its kind in the nation.

The section manager said it was for people “who bring detailed information about, for example, the latest train models used in Italy and railways in China, and ask for very difficult arrangements.”

The section arranges tours for enthusiasts “in which trains are the purpose of trips, not the means of transportation,” the manager said.

In March, JTB opened Travel Gate Yokohama, a large sales office occupying about 1,300 square meters on the first to fourth floors of a building near the west exit of JR Yokohama Station.

The floors are divided into sections for specific travel purposes, such as studying abroad, trips for mature couples, and couples planning to get married abroad.

HIS said Travel Gate Yokohama is like a shopping mall accommodating specialty travel service stores. The company also allows staffers in some specialized areas to take exams to become certified as experts on World Heritage sites.

The companies have made efforts to foster employees who can meet the needs of clients with special interests.

The travel industry is currently upbeat as the recent economic upturn has stimulated demand for high-priced travel services, and baby boomers have boosted demand for holidays as they plan trips to celebrate their retirement.

A survey conducted by JTB indicates that the number of people who will make overseas trips this summer will increase 2 percent from last season to 2.52 million–the highest in six years.

But KNT President Takashi Ota said: “Demand boosted by the baby-boomer generation can’t continue forever. The key is how to offer as many services as possible and better meet clients’ needs.”

Overseas trips are increasingly common, and a growing number of people book flights and hotels via the Internet.

But the major travel agencies are strengthening sales office activities to prepare for the time when demand from baby boomers tails off.