This is Nishiyama, Chief Operating Officer of Seibu Holdings. First, in terms of the external environment, we entered the post-COVID phase in the first half of this fiscal year. While the economic environment continued its moderate recovery, with improvements in employment and people's incomes, the rise in various costs resulting from global inflation has significantly impacted various areas. In addition, although there has been a global recovery in people's activities, the number of commuter passengers, mainly workers, has remained low, with working from home taking root. On the other hand, inbound travel has recovered to the pre-COVID level. Although the number of Chinese visitors to Japan has decreased significantly compared to pre-COVID, the number of visitors from other countries, including the U.S., Europe, Australia, and South Korea, has increased, and statistics show that the number of visitors to Japan in September was around 96% of that in 2019.
Next, I will talk about the group's business performance. As Mr. Furuta will explain later, consolidated operating profit for the first half of fiscal year 2023 was JPY 31.8 billion, up JPY 18.4 billion year-on-year and JPY 8.8 billion higher than our plan at the beginning of the fiscal year. With COVID being reclassified as a Class 5 infectious disease, we have been able to capture the growth in non-commuter passengers, as well as the demand for hotel and leisure facilities, and you can see that from our earnings. Based on our current earnings and business conditions, we have revised up our full-year forecast on September 28th, and we now expect an operating profit of JPY 41 billion, up JPY 5 billion from the plan at the beginning of the fiscal year.
As I explained in our presentation in May, the key theme for this fiscal year is rigorous price hikes accompanied by higher value.
In the hotel business in particular, we have been steadily reflecting in our service prices the effects of value-up investments we have been making, as well as the hospitality of our employees, which we have been refining and have sustainably raised ADR. As a result, ADR in the first half of the year was up approximately 25% year-on-year and up approximately 20% compared to pre-COVID. We are confident that our efforts have been well-received by our customers, as seen in the customer satisfaction figures. In order to achieve the new plan, which has been revised up, in an attempt to outperform the revenue targets, we will continue to raise prices by providing higher value, and we will also implement measures to capture the rising demand and the pickup in people's activities. Next, I would like to talk about dividends.
As announced in May, we set the level of the half-year dividend at JPY 12.5. As explained, in addition to the outperformance in operating profit, we booked extraordinary gains related to real estate in the first half of this fiscal year. We have decided to not change the half-year dividend following a comprehensive analysis of our funding status and other factors. The year-end dividend is also set at JPY 12.5, making the full-year dividend JPY 25, which is the same level as last year. We will carefully consider the year-end dividend in light of our future earnings and other factors. We will continue to strike the right balance between returning profits to our stakeholders and making investments that contribute to our growth.
In terms of the progress made in the medium-term management plan, we continued to work on the three main pillars of the plan: management reforms, digital management, and sustainability. With regard to management reforms, we are now making preparations to engage in the capital recycling business. In August, we selected a collaborative partner and have begun considerations of real estate portfolios and balance sheet management. We will work with our partner to mutually share expertise, including human capital, and to strengthen our real estate business. The next milestone will be May 2024, when we will determine and disclose which properties will be put into the private funds and REITs. In the hotel and leisure business, we are aiming to become the number one quality hotel chain in the industry and are actively working to acquire new management contract opportunities.
In addition to the rebranding and opening of the Grand Prince Hotel Osaka Bay in July, we will continue to vigorously expand our network, including the rebranding of The Kitano Hotel New York, the only Japanese-owned and operated hotel in New York, and its reopening as The Prince Kitano New York on December 1st. In addition, to touch on our new businesses, last month, we made Dot Homes Incorporated. a subsidiary with the aim of strengthening our outdoor business, which the group has been promoting, as well as strengthening digital marketing expertise and human capital in this area. This company specializes in supporting the opening of accommodation facilities, mainly resort hotels and glamping facilities, the consignment of outsourced operations, and marketing DX support.
Through the convergence of its expertise in enhancing customer experience and improving the profitability of accommodation facilities with the rich and extensive assets owned by the Seibu Group, we are looking forward to the creation of cross-group business synergies. In terms of sustainability, starting from January 2024, all of the electricity used on all Seibu Railway lines will be derived from renewable energy sources, and we will begin operating with virtually zero CO₂ emissions . In addition, the Hakone Yunohana Prince Hotel has started operating the first binary cycle power generation system in Kanagawa Prefecture that utilizes heat from hot springs. These are initiatives unique to the Seibu Group, utilizing our assets to proactively reduce CO₂ emissions . We believe that these efforts will bring us much closer to achieving the group's CO₂ reduction target of 46% by fiscal year 2030 compared to the fiscal year 2018 level.
As I mentioned, we believe that our efforts in management reforms, digital management, and sustainability, which form the core of our medium-term management plan, are generally progressing well. Lastly, I would like to briefly touch on the future. This fiscal year is the third and final year of our medium-term management plan. In addition, as a result of the management reforms we are undertaking under the current medium-term management plan, our group is undergoing significant change through reorganization, intra-group transfer of assets, as well as the securitization of assets to outside the group. In light of these changes, in addition to the formulation of the new medium-term management plan starting next fiscal year, we are also discussing our current long-term strategy, reviewing it from a new perspective. We plan to make an announcement next May.
At that time, we hope to present to you a new Seibu Group and its growth story. Just to give you some color, the Seibu Group's strength remains unchanged. It lies in the fact that we have abundant assets, not only in the city center and along our railway lines, but also in the resort areas. We intend to come up with a growth story that makes the most of these real estate assets. Whether or not we can make the most of these abundant assets depends on our people. We will draw up a scenario that steadily advances the development and acquisition of such people, as well as bringing out and strengthening the specialization of our talent. It goes without saying that we will strive to make further contributions to society based on the group's vision of Smiles Ahead. Thank you.
This is Furuta, I will be presenting the financial results. Please refer to page three of the presentation titled Overview of Financial Results for the six months ended September 30, 2023. This page is the summary of this document. I will go over the highlights of the first half results, the full-year forecast, and current trends. Please turn to page four. These are the results of the first half. Operating revenue for the period was JPY 238.8 billion, up from the same period of the previous year, thanks to the recovery in people's activities following the downgrade of COVID to a Type 5 infectious disease and the subsequent recovery and demand, as well as efforts to raise prices, mainly in the hotel business.
In terms of profit, operating profit and ordinary profit both increased year-on-year to JPY 31.8 billion and JPY 29.1 billion, respectively due to the increase in revenue I just mentioned, despite the rise in personnel expenses and other costs.
Profit attributable to owners of parent was JPY 27.4 billion, a year-on-year decrease due to the absence of the gain on sales of fixed assets, which we booked at the end of the first half of last year, resulting from the sale of four properties, including The Prince Park Tower Tokyo. Compared to the revised forecast for the first half announced on September 28, operating profit and profit attributable to owners of parent exceeded the revised forecast by JPY 1.8 billion and JPY 1.4 billion, respectively, mainly due to the postponement of some expenses to the second half. Please see pages five and six for the factors for the increase and decrease by segment.
Moving to page five. We achieved year-on-year growth in operating revenue for all segments. The hotel and leisure business was particularly strong, with the increase in the number of guests and ADR growth serving as the driving forces behind the growth, despite factors such as the revenue decline from asset disposals. Page six explains the details of our profit, you can see that all segments enjoyed profit growth year-on-year. Next, let me go back to explaining the financial results. Page 25, please. This section shows the basic segment data in detail. Let me touch upon the status of inbound guests at our domestic hotels, which is probably of interest to you. The table in the middle shows the figures for hotels owned or leased in Japan.
The ratio of foreign guests to the total number of guests is 27.6% on a number of customers basis and 40.0% on a room revenue basis, both of which have recovered to levels exceeding the pre-COVID level. To give you some more color on how the regions other than Asia, namely North America and Europe, are driving inbound demand. In terms of room revenue for the month of September, the number of guests from the United States was 1.8x , and guests from Europe 1.3x compared to September 2018, and the strong recovery is still continuing. Next, please see page 34. This is the full-year forecast. There is no change from the revised forecast announced on September 28th.
As for the profit attributable to owners of parent, as explained in the lower half of the page, we have factored in extraordinary gains from the sale of fixed assets expected in the second half of the fiscal year, in addition to income related to the transfer of leasehold interests in land received in the first half of the fiscal year. Next, please refer to page 35 for current business trends. This page shows the assumptions used in the forecast of the railway business as well as current trends. The graph and table at the top show the assumptions for the revised forecast announced on September 28th. The table at the bottom shows the monthly trend in the number of people passing through ticket gates up to October. As you can see, over the past six months, both commuter and non-commuter have shown a year-on-year recovery.
The recovery in non-commuter is expected to be more pronounced now that the extremely hot summer that lasted until September has ended and we have entered the holiday travel season. Just to note that the figures for October 2019 are affected by the negative impact from the typhoons at the time and the subsequent suspension of operations. We have therefore also shown numbers excluding the typhoon impact for your reference. Next, on page 36, I would like to explain the assumptions for the forecast of the domestic hotel business and the current trends. The graph on the upper left and the table on the upper right show the assumptions for the metrics in the revised forecast announced on September 28th, and the table on the middle right shows the monthly trends up to October.
The October results, which are preliminary, show RevPAR at 108% and ADR at around 117% compared to 2019. The outlook for November and December, which were estimated as of November 1st, is shown at the lower half of the page. November is about 107% in terms of RevPAR and 118% for ADR compared to 2019. In December, we expect RevPAR of 109% and ADR of 125%, and we will continue to improve RevPAR by raising prices. In terms of inbound reservations, on a room revenue basis, we are expecting 130% this November and 105% next December, which is well above the pre-COVID level. We need to monitor geopolitical and other risks, we expect this positive trend to continue going forward. Thank you.