Year 2005 brought about improvement in sectors like tourism and outdoor activities due to popularity of Expo 2005 Aichi Japan but other sectors saw decline in traffic as compared to 2004. It may take a bit more time until real economic recovery is going to be felt in the leisure industry.

The activity-based ranking did not change from No. 1 "Catering industry" to No. 10 "Zoo, botanical garden, aquarium, museum" as compared to 2004. Most activities saw decline of traffic from 2004. The traffic in No. 2 "Domestic leisure trip (summer trip, winter trip, hot spring, etc." declined from 60,800,000 in 2004 to 58,300,000 in 2005 but the traffic for "Events and exhibitions" increased sharply due to Expo 2005 Aichi Japan. Other tourism related activities like "Homecoming trip" made it within top 20 and "International trip", which is below top 20, recorded healthy increase.

The "Movie (excluding TV)" activities, which until 2004 recorded steady increase, stopped the increase due to the lack of hit movies. Similarly, the traffic for "Lottery" and "PC (game, hobby, communication, etc.) remained at the similar level.

The size of leisure industry in 2005 was 80,093 billion Yen, which is 1.5% decline from 81,341 billion Yen in 2004. The industry continues its decline since the peak year of 1996.

Sports sub-sector declined by 1.9% against 2004 but health related activities as utilization of fitness clubs and tennis schools are continuing upward trend. Golf driving range also improved. Sports related goods also appear to have bottomed out.

Hobby and creative sub-sector declined by 4.0%. Media related activities like flat-panel TV and music contents are continuing to do well. Movie, which did not have notable hit among international films, is down and competition among cinema-complex is heating up.

Leisure sub-sector decreased by 1.5%. Game arcades and TV games (hardware) is doing well. Among game software, software to "train brain" has been a hit. While gambling sub-sector is struggling, lottery market reached 1.1 trillion level.

Tourism and outdoor sub-sector improved by 1.3%. Travel industry, domestic air travel and hotel industry is doing well with senior people as customers. The demand for international trip is also increasing. Regarding domestic trip, the popularity of Expo 2005 Aichi Japan resulted in robust revenue of travel in the Chubu area,

The percentage of people over 60 years old among population that is 15 years or older topped 50% mark in 2003 in Japan, signaling the arrival of aged society. In the 91 activities measured by the white paper, too, the percentage of senior people is increasing quickly. There are now 21 "senior activities" (activities of which 50% or more of participants are senior people.) Including those "semi-senior activities" (activities with close to 50% ratio,) the total is about 30 or 1/3 of entire activities. The ratio of senior people is most notable in "hobby and creative" activities. For reference, 10 years ago in 1997, number of "senior activity" was 10 and "semi-senior activity" was 5. The change illustrates how quickly senior people's presence is increasing.

As the weight of senior people increases, the old thinking that equates leisure with young people (customers) is no longer valid. Similarly, the association of senior people with need of care needs to be changed as healthy and active seniors enter the market.