Japan Camper Sales Rise During COVID Pandemic

Businesses have become more creative with their campers and other outdoor-leisure vehicles, which have grown in popularity during the novel coronavirus crisis.

Photo Insert: The prototype of Nissan Motor Co.'s Caravan Myroom Concept camper van

Cheaper options have fueled sales among younger drivers, but now, some rather unconventional vehicles are attracting attention, Junichi Kamiyama reported for Asahi Shimbun.

Seventy companies put automobiles on display at the Japan Camping Car Show 2022 at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba from Feb. 10 to 13. Nissan Motor Co. showed a prototype camper van named Caravan Myroom Concept. Proposed by a young employee, the vehicle contains a foldable bed and rotatable desk in its luggage area that can be used for telework or rest.

R.C. Core Co., a Tokyo-based log house builder, released its Imago log cabin on wheels in October and aims to sell 1,000 units in fiscal 2022. The cabin, which is designed to be towed by a sport utility vehicle, comes in two sizes, 6.51 square meters and 11.27 square meters in floor space.

It costs between 3.86 million and 4.57 million yen ($33,500 and $39,700), compared with a full-sized camper van, which typically sells for 7 million to 8 million yen.

Jusetz Marketing Co., a camper builder in Kobe, sells the Movuse camper canopy to be mounted on small trucks with an engine displacement of 660 cc or less at a cost of 583,000 yen. Interior fittings can be changed at buyers’ requests. A Movuse-equipped truck is priced at 1.8 million yen.

The number of orders doubled in 2021 from 2019, and many of new owners were younger than 35. Preliminary data from the Japan Recreational Vehicle Association in Yokohama show that total sales of camper vans in Japan in 2021 increased 9 percent year on year to 63.54 billion yen.

The figure is triple that of 10 years ago. In 2021, 136,000 campers were owned by motorists in Japan, up 6 percent from the previous year. Many camper makers are small and midsize companies and procure base vehicles from major automakers. It is rare for domestic auto giants like Nissan to develop camper vans on their own.

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