The Influence of Japanese “Contents tourism” on Chinese Outbound Tourists

Tourism as an important force to promote local development has attracted the attention of the Japanese government and Japanese organizations. International tourism fueled the growth of the Japanese economy and these inbound tourists are not only interested in traditional Japanese culture but also popular ones. With the growth of a fan foundation and the economic impact of the popular Japanese culture, the concept of “contents tourism” was introduced by the Japanese government as a promotion strategy and became a buzzword. There are many pieces of research about “contents tourism” in Japan, and these researches mostly focused on the government, organizations, economic impact etc., but this study is focused on the influence of Japanese “contents” which is generally defined as the popular culture on the demand side. The Chinese outbound tourism as a rapidly expanding market and the biggest amount of visitors and spenders of Japan’s inbound tourism is selected to be the target of this study. The study is concentrated on the main research question “ To what extent does Japanese ‘contents’ as a branding strategy influence Chinese outbound traveling?”. The influence on Chinese outbound tourists is examined in terms of motivation, travel activity preference, destination selection and the effectiveness of branding. In order to successfully achieve the aim of the study, a quantitative method and online questionnaires were used by the researcher to gather and analyze the data. According to the analysis of motivation and activity preferences, B-grade gourmet is the most influential and attractive content for general Chinese outbound tourists. Other contents like shooting places and sacred places are more attractive for repeated visitors, higher educated and male visitors. Based on the previous experience, intention, attitudes, and branding, the contents plays an important role in increasing the possibility of destination selection. The effectiveness of branding is studied in brand awareness, brand image and brand loyalty, and confirmed positive. Especially mascots have an obvious advantage in raising brand awareness. The results demonstrated that as a branding strategy the “contents” has limited influences on Chinese tourists’ motivation and activities, but they successfully built the brand of these contents related destinations and raised the possibility of destination selection. Moreover, the potential influence of contents on Chinese outbound tourists is positive and using influential information sources like word-of-mouth can enhance the efficiency of branding.