Pan-Pacific Conference XXXIV. Designing New Business Models in Developing Economies

Study Related to Factors causing Foreign Tourists from South East Asia to
Select Okinawa -Case Study of Taiwan-
Naohisa Kakutani
Senior Associate Professor of Tourism Industry,
Faculty of International Studies, Meio University
1220-1, Bimata, Nago City, Okinawa 905-8585, JAPAN
nkakutani@meio-u.ac.jp
81-980-51-1173
ABSTRACT
The number of foreign visitors to Japan was
relatively limited though Japan has been rich in
tourist attractions, but the number is dramatically
increasing thanks to enforced tourist policies of the
Japanese Government. It has been found through
the present study related to motivations of
Taiwanese selecting Okinawa, located closest to
their own country, as a destination when visiting
Japan, that there are differences in motivation of
visiting Japan among Taiwanese and foreign visitors
as a whole.
Keywords: visits to Japan, Taiwan outbound,
sightseeing in Okinawa
1. Introduction
The number of foreign visitors to Japan in
2016 was 24.03 million, an increase by 21.8% on
year-on-year basis. This means that the number has
increased by 2.4 times after recording more than 10
million (10.36 million) visitors for the first time in
2013.
The number of foreign visitors was as small
as 5.21 million back in 2003 when the Japanese
government first introduced the “Visit Japan
Policy”. The target number of foreign visitors was
set to 20 million by 2020 in the policy of 2013, but
it was revised up to 40 million thereafter. As a
matter of course, the travel consumption is also on
the increasing trend, and the travel consumption in
2016 amounted to 347.6 billion, accounting for
0.7% of the Japanese GDP (531,647 billion).
This explosive increase in the number of
foreign visitors to Japan plays a certain role also in
regional vitalization, another policy objective of the
government. Eleven sightseeing tour routes
covering wide areas have been created from
conventional routes called Golden Routes traveling
around Tokyo, Hakone, Mount Fuji, Nagoya, Kyoto
and Osaka. The purpose is to decentralize increasing
foreign visitors to ease congestion of urban areas
and to revitalize regional economies.
The present paper focuses on Taiwanese
visitors to Okinawa, located closest to Taiwan, to
overview and analyze the current status in view of
destination selection of Taiwanese when visiting
Japan.
2. Selection of destination of taiwanese
According to the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan,
13.18 million Taiwanese traveled out of Taiwan in
2015. Among these, the number of visitors to Asian
countries amounts to 3.67 million, accounting for
approximately 27.8%. The breakdown thereof is as
follows.
Source:JapanNationalTourismOrganization
Fig1: Number of Taiwanese Traveling
Abroad (PAX)
As it is apparent from the above graph, while
the numbers of visitors to countries other than Japan
have either slightly increased or decreased since
2011, the number of visitors to Japan is the only
steadily increasing one and coincides with the
growth of the total number of visitors. This
indicates that the current measures of the Japanese
government are actually boosting demands.
One large factor is that domestic LCCs (Low
Cost Carriers) went into service to Taiwan which
lead to a dramatic increase in the number of flights
connecting Taiwan and Japan and also caused cuts
in air fares. Further, enhanced promotion of entities
including the Japanese National Tourism
Organization also in local cities in Taiwan has
proved to be effective to appeal to customers.
Visitor behaviors at different cities in Japan
have been revealed by a behavior survey of foreign
visitors to Japan conducted by the Japan Tourism
Agency in 2016.
Source: Japan Tourism Agency, 2016
Fig2: Share of Used Airports
Excluding the airports of the Golden Route,
Narita, Kansai and Haneda, the number of
passengers of Okinawa airport ranks second after
Fukuoka, and is thus larger than that of Sapporo, the
entrance of Hokkaido.
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