Aug. 12, 2003 - TOKYO--Japanese travel agencies saw their June overseas tour bookings drop by half from year-earlier levels, reflecting a plunge in demand for trips to Asian destinations due to the prolonged impact from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, the government said Tuesday.

The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry said 50 major domestic travel agencies booked a total of 89.4 billion yen worth of overseas tours in June, down 51.7 percent from a year earlier.

It was the second straight month for such bookings to register yearly declines of more than 50 percent, though the size of the June fall was smaller by 3.2 percentage points from that in May.

Domestic tour arrangements, meanwhile, increased 5.0 percent to 270.4 billion yen, marking the first growth since February last year.

The increase may be attributable to a shift from overseas trips, as well as drops in June last year as people refrained from going out to watch the World Cup soccer finals at that time, industry officials said.

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