2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

The role of intra-cultural and cross-cultural tourist-tourist interactions in the tourism service encounter

Research Project

Project/Area Number	18K11864
Research Institution	Otaru University of Commerce
Principal Investigator	Praet Carolus 小樽商科大学, 商学部, 教授 (40292081)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	鈴木和宏小樽商科大学, 商学部, 教授 (10708366) 王力勇小樽商科大学, 商学部, 准教授 (70772466)
Project Period (FY)	2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
Keywords	social interaction / tourism
Outline of Annual Research Achievements	This project investigates both cross-cultural and intra-cultural tourist-tourist interaction and the role it plays in the overall visitor experience. During the first stage of the research project, we collected qualitative data from domestic and international tourists in Japan. We conducted 18 interviews in English, mainly with Western tourists, 28 interviews with Chinese tourists, and 26 interviews with domestic Japanese tourists. Results of the Chinese data appeared as a chapter of Sustainable and Collaborative Tourism in a Digital World in April 2021. In January 2021, a second paper appeared in Tourism Planning & Development, a B-rated journal (ABDC journal quality list), or second-tier (Q2) journal (SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) indicator).
Current Status of Research Progress	Current Status of Research Progress 4: Progress in research has been delayed. Reason The COVID-19 pandemic has forced Japan to suspend inbound tourism, preventing us from collecting additional data on inbound tourists.
Strategy for Future Research Activity	At the time of writing, Japan is preparing to resume inbound tourism on a limited/trial basis from June 2022. We are preparing a survey instrument to use once inbound tourism resumes in sufficient numbers. Due to the suspension of inbound tourism, we shifted our research focus to China, where domestic tourism had resumed in 2021. At the end of March 2021, we conducted an online survey on the impact of COVID-19 on social interaction with other tourists among 500 Chinese leisure travelers. Unfortunately, we encountered structural problems with the quality and validity of the online panel data. We plan to use a different online research company to gather valid data in China in FY 2022.
Causes of Carryover	Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no inbound travelers to Japan that we could survey during FY 2021. We plan to allocate the budget to conducting additional surveys among inbound travelers to Japan once inbound travel resumes, and to conducting online surveys in China. In addition, we also plan use part of the budget for travel to international conferences.