Japan's dominance as Asia Pacific's largest travel market has come to an end, marking a major milestone for the region as an emerging China assumes the top spot. Following over a decade of economic stagnation, Japan's recovery from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami has been sluggish, and the country's overall travel market growth will slow to 2% by 2015, according to a new PhoCusWright report. Yet Japan's online leisure/unmanaged business travel market, by far APAC's largest, will sustain double-digit growth through 2014. "Japan's travel industry has endured numerous challenges to growth for some time now, but the country's substantial online travel market should not be written off," said Douglas Quinby, senior director, research. "In fact, by 2015, the value of Japan's online travel gross bookings will still be more than double that of China." Air is Japan's fastest-growing travel segment, as the emergence of several low-cost airline carriers (LCCs), some backed by local...