2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Challenges and Potentials of Transnational Film/Contents Tourism: A Case Study of Japanese Fan Tourists in Germany
| Project/Area Number |
19K20565
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| Research Institution | Kanazawa University |
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Principal Investigator |
THELEN TIMO 金沢大学, 歴史言語文化学系, 講師 (90837452)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | Tourism / Media Tourism / Anthropology |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I expanded this project to the case of Hita City in Oita Prefecture, Japan, which recently began to engage in contents tourism related to "Attack on Titan" and conducted interviews there with local stakeholders. I could also finally visit Nordlingen City in Bavaria, Germany, for an interview with the local authorities about their tourism planning.
I penned one peer-reviewed journal article based on this research project for “Current Issues in Tourism”, held a presentation at an international conference and at a domestic conference to share my results.
Regarding the results, I found out, that "fan capital" theory and "tourist tribe" theory are useful approaches to understand my case studies and to provide a deeper understanding of contents tourism dynamics in the globalized society. Non-commodified tourist sites emerge through fan activities, which than stepwise grow into a larger fan communities by using social media, also leading to transnational fan tourism. At a later stage, local authorities become aware of the fan tourist sites and begin to provide an infrastructure of events, places, and souvenirs. At this point, however, the fan communities’ interest in this site might decrease due to its commercial exploitation.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Due to the continuous Covid-19 situation, I could only conduct fieldwork between January 2022 and March 2022. By doing so, I could collect valuable research data. However, to better understand the perspectives of fan/media tourists, an additional fieldwork in the summer season is indispensable.
Regarding this situation, I focused for most of 2021 on penning a peer-reviewed journal article and on the two research presentations, which all are largely based on earlier fieldwork.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In 2022, as the Covid-19 situation is getting step to step more safe, I plan to conduct additional fieldwork stays in Nordlingen and Hita to gather more data (probably during the summer season, when it is easier to conduct interviews with tourists). With this data, I will pen one more peer-reviewed journal article and one book chapter in a high-rank edited volume. For this latter, the arrangement is also fixed. A presentation at an international conference is also in the planning for the second half of the year.
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| Causes of Carryover |
In 2022, as the Covid-19 situation is getting step to step more safe, I plan to conduct additional fieldwork stays in Nordlingen and Hita to gather more data (probably during the summer season, when it is easier to conduct interviews with tourists). With this data, I will pen one more peer-reviewed journal article and one book chapter in a high-rank edited volume. For this latter, the arrangement is also fixed. A presentation at an international conference is also in the planning for the second half of the year.
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