Examining Japanese tourists' US-bound travel constraints

^†This article is based on the first author's thesis. Part of this article was presented at the seventeenth Annual Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism. Auburn, AL, USA.

Abstract

Most studies on travel/leisure constraints to date were conducted in Western countries under a Western-centric research paradigm. It is not clear whether people from non-Western countries, such as Japan, face different outbound travel constraints. It is also not clear whether constraints research in a non-Western context will generate results that are consistent with what has been documented in the literature. This study focused on Japanese travellers' US-related travel constraints. The data were drawn from an online panel survey on 1200 recent and potential Japanese outbound travellers. Four categories of constraints emerged in this study: personal preferences, psychological concerns, cost concerns, and accessibility issues. In addition, this study revealed that Japanese tourists with different socio-demographic characteristics faced diverse US-bound travel constraints.

Keywords:

• travel constraints
• Japanese outbound tourism
• US-bound travel
• international travel

Acknowledgements

Data used in this article were collected for a project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Travel and Tourism Industry Center at the University of South Carolina, the USA Department of Commerce/Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, National Tour Association, and several US destination and travel-industry partners.

Notes

^†This article is based on the first author's thesis. Part of this article was presented at the seventeenth Annual Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism. Auburn, AL, USA.