The Association of All Japan Travel Agents (ANTA, Chairman: Toshihiro Nikai) has added a new "Major Accident Support and Compensation System" to its travel accident compensation system from April 1st. In the event of a serious accident during travel, the system will comprehensively support travel agencies in responding to accidents, such as ensuring the safety of travelers and dealing with travelers' families and the media, and will also cover expenses. From April 1st onwards, the system will be automatically applied to the travel accident compensation system and overseas package tour compensation system for ANTA members. The new compensation system was jointly developed with Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance Inc. and will be handled by Travel Business Support. The system will provide crisis management and response for domestic and overseas package tours (recruitment type and order type), domestic and overseas arranged tours, and inbound tours handled by ANTA members. In the event of a serious accident, a team from the accident response specialist company "Safety Support" will rush to the accident scene or office and provide detailed support for the travel agency on the response that should be taken. In addition to having a person in charge stationed at the office for the necessary period, the New Travel Accident Countermeasures Expense Insurance will expand the scope of coverage to include expenses such as rescue costs for victims, travel expenses for families to the site, food costs, labor costs for temporary employees to respond to accidents, legal consultation fees, and venue setup and response for press conferences. Serious accidents are covered when one or more people die in an accident, or when one or more people are hospitalized for a total of three days or more in an accident. The payment limits are 10 million yen and 1 million yen, respectively. This will increase the premium by 19 yen per traveler. Following the Karuizawa ski tour bus accident in January 2016, ANTA considered providing support for serious accidents for its members. In October of the same year, it launched the Travel Industry Serious Accident Support System. However, it said that individual contracts to use the system were not growing. Regarding the compensation system linked to insurance, ANTA Executive Director Kazuma Arino said at a briefing session on the new system, "We received many voices from our members saying that they wanted it to be linked to insurance, including compensation for expenses. This new system can be used by all members who have signed up for the All Japan Travel Association Travel Accident Compensation System, and we believe that we have created a more thorough system in the event of an emergency accident. We would like to spread the word widely and encourage its use," and he hopes to increase the use of insurance among ANTA members. Currently, All Japan Travel Association Travel Accident Insurance is used by 3,700 of the approximately 5,600 members, and covers approximately 6.4 million travelers on 200,000 trips per year.