Japanese businessman Katsuo Inoue chose Italy for his summer vacation this year. He enjoyed the views of Florence and Rome-without ever leaving Japan.

Inoue and his wife “flew” to Italy on First Airlines, a company known for entertainment （娱乐），not transportation. The Tokyo-based new company entered the fast growing online tourism early this year as many countries have stopped accepting foreign tourists.

“I often go to other countries on business, but I haven't been to Italy,” Inoue said. "My impression was really good because I got a sense of actually seeing things there. First Airlines even gave us life jackets and oxygen masks（氧气罩）！”

The “passengers” on First Airlines sit in the first — or business-class areas of an airplane model. Workers serve meals and drinks as large screens show passing clouds and other views outside the airplane. The “travelers“ then receive glasses that provide virtual reality（虚拟现实 的）tours of places like Paris, New York, Hawaii and Rome.

The country's biggest airline, ANA Holdings, said that the numbers of passengers flying to foreign countries fell by 96 percent since June when Japan has stopped most travel in and out of the country. The International Air Transport Association （lAIA ） and The International Tourism Association （ITA） said last month that international travels wouldn't be able to recover until 2024. But they said the online travels have been growing very fast.

The president, Hiroaki Abe, said, “Since we started our online tour this year, our business has been increasing by 50 percent each month. Most of our customers usually travel to other countries every year and they can now experience some of that here when they are unable to go to the real attractions.”

During our four days in Sydney, the first thing on my wish list was to record the symbols of this city, the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, at sunset (日落). Thankfully, my family was very patient with me, as we watched the sunset over and over again while I recorded the exciting moments on my camera.

We first arrived at the Queen Victoria Building, or QVB, which has been called one of the most beautiful places to go shopping. From the QVB we walked down to the Circular Quay, our first look at the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

Then the next day, we went to the Taronga Zoo, located across the harbour (港口) from the Circular Quay. There are many Australian animals as well as lions, tigers, and Asian elephants. The best part of the zoo is the ferry (渡船) ride to get there and the view along the way.

For one of the best sunset views, we paid a visit to Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, a famous viewpoint of the Sydney Harbour. I felt like a true photographer, making my very patient and understanding family wait in the cold for almost two hours while I filled my memory card with photos of the wonderful sunset.

Our time had to come to an end. We spent our last night at the Sydney Opera House café, playing cards, drinking wine, and watching the sunset.

If you would like to know where not to stay in Sydney, then do not go to the Central Railway Hotel. This hotel, one of the few that were cheap enough to fit into our budget, was loud, dirty, and crowded. We were always checking the windows, since so much noise was coming in from the streets. The only good thing was its location, being a five-minute walk from Central Station, a hub (中心) of Sydney.

Hoo, the online hotel room offer platform, has found that the level of staycations being taken across 16 global holiday hotspots has increased by an average of 18 percent when compared to this time last year.

With the cost of accommodation also climbing 16 percent, Hoo found more of an increase in domestic demand for travel. “This time last year, we were already starting to see caution where our holidays were concerned, as the growing threat of COVID caused uncertainty over travel plans. A year down the line and there's an obvious shift away from international travel,” Hoo co-founder Adrian Murdock said in a statement, “Although we now remain in lockdown in many parts of the world, many are hoping that the easing of restrictions will allow domestic travel by the time the holiday season arrives.”

Hoo, a British-based company, is an online platform that allows users to book a hotel room at the advertised rate or to make an offer on the room which the hotel can accept or decline in real-time. The figures it collected from 16 key tourism markets show that, currently, an average of 76 percent of all bookings are for domestic holidays, with just 24 percent of bookings being made for holidays abroad. This is an 18 percent swing when compared to the same point last year when just 58 percent of bookings were for domestic holidays.

At the same time, this domestic demand seems to have caused an increase in the cost of staycations. Hoo also analyzed hotel room rates across major cities within each nation and found that the average cost of a room per night has increased by 16 percent.