President, Chairman and Holding Company—All on July 7
On July 7, 2026, Big Holiday appointed Hirotoshi Iwasaki president and moved former president Yasutoshi Iwasaki to chairman. On the same day it established Big Holiday Holdings to manage the group while the operating company continued the travel business.
Hirotoshi was born in October 1993 and took office at 32. He worked at Yusen Travel, joined Big Holiday as a director in 2020, earned an MBA from Meiji University and served on group-company boards. The company credits him with web marketing, HR reform and DX/AI initiatives.
A Young President Is Not Yet a Succession
Transferring a title is different from transferring management. Succession includes ownership, voting control, lender relationships, supplier trust, employee support and permission to make mistakes. Keeping the former president as chairman preserves experience but can blur the new president's authority.
A strong chairman changes from the person who gives answers into the person who creates conditions in which the successor can answer. The new president need not reject the previous generation to prove his youth. He must explain what changes and what remains.
Why Create a Holding Company?
| Purpose | Opportunity | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Separate governance and operations | Holdco allocates capital and talent; units focus on customers. | Extra meetings and overhead. |
| Business-level accountability | Clearer performance across travel and related units. | Internal transactions can obscure reality. |
| M&A and partnerships | Easier acquisitions, sales and joint ventures. | Integration capability is still required. |
| Succession | Separate group control from day-to-day operation. | Ownership and authority must be transparent. |
A holding company is not magic. It creates value only when investment standards, group talent, data, brand and risk management become genuinely shared while operating companies receive clear authority.
Japan's Family-Business Succession Problem
Japan's SME owners have aged, and closure for lack of successors became a national policy issue. A profitable company with technology and customers can still disappear if nobody is prepared to inherit it. Government has expanded succession tax, M&A and financing support.
Family succession offers long horizons, culture and rapid transfer of trust. It can also confuse bloodline with merit and discourage non-family managers. The governing question is not “Is he family?” but whether experience, results, selection and board oversight can be explained.
What Does a Travel Company Sell Now?
In 1964, access to information, tickets and group arrangements created travel-agency value. The internet and online travel agencies moved search, comparison and booking to customers, while airlines and hotels expanded direct sales.
Agencies remain valuable in groups, fan communities, sports, education, corporate travel, complex international arrangements and disruption response. Big Holiday operates travel planning, airline sales and group travel, and in 2026 announced planning support for entertainment agencies and fan-club tours.
The task is not merely putting reservations online. It is moving from an arranger toward a company that understands a community's purpose and designs and operates an experience.
DX Is Not a Website Redesign
| Area | Legacy | Next management |
|---|---|---|
| Sales | Telephone, counter, brochure. | Customer data, direct sales, personalization. |
| Product | Large batches of identical tours. | Small, themed products by region and community. |
| Operations | Experience and spreadsheets. | Integrated inventory, margin and disruption data. |
| Relationship | Ends after each trip. | Repeat travel, membership and community. |
| AI | Drafting text. | Assist demand, pricing, service and crisis response. |
AI can draft itineraries, multilingual guidance and inquiry responses. But errors in passports, visas, fare rules and safety information cause real harm. AI should be the fast first drafter while the agency retains final responsibility.
Three Advantages of a Young Leader
First is proximity to customer behavior: search, social video, communities and mobile booking. Second is the labor market: a younger leader may better understand how younger employees expect to learn, work and be evaluated. Third is time horizon: he can invest in systems intended to compound for a decade.
Youth also means less crisis and negotiation experience. Travel can change overnight through disease, earthquake, typhoon, war, currency and aviation failure. The chairman's experience should become institutional knowledge rather than either permanent intervention or discarded history.
What Employees Watch
Employees judge promotion, budgets, meetings and the response to failure—not speeches. DX rhetoric with paper approvals and pure seniority destroys trust. If leadership remains closed to non-family employees, strong people leave.
A holding company creates an opportunity for group careers, specialist tracks, young managers and leadership development. If the next president does not have to be family, this succession will have become an institution.
The Numbers to Watch in the First 1,000 Days
| Area | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Customer | Direct booking, repeat, referral and complaint resolution. |
| Product | Gross profit by tour, cancellation, inventory and launch speed. |
| Organization | Retention, women and young managers, internal promotion. |
| DX | Revenue, margin and processing improvement—not login counts. |
| Governance | Chairman-president authority, investment rules and board dissent. |
Immediate sales largely reflect the prior pipeline and market. The proper question is whether customer assets, talent, data and margin structure are stronger three years later.
Thirty-Eight Years to a Centennial
The company speaks of becoming a 100-year enterprise. Founded in 1964, it reaches that mark in 2064, when Hirotoshi would be around 70. That horizon asks whether today's systems, culture and successor development can last.
Family succession is not success or failure by itself. Neither is a holding company. Value will be measured by whether family trust becomes organizational capability, travel disruption becomes customer value, and the next succession becomes easier than this one.
The story begins with a 32-year-old president. In a successful succession, his age eventually stops being news because the company is no longer dependent on one person's longevity.