The impact of multidimensional country distances on consumption of specialty products: A case study of inbound tourists to Japan

Abstract

This study adapts and extends the cultural, administrative, geographic, and economic distance framework. The framework was proposed in the field of international business studies to examine the effect of distances between home and host countries on tourist preference for specialty products. We proposed four hypotheses based on segmentation and distance studies and conducted an empirical analysis of a questionnaire survey of 4474 foreign tourists from 49 different countries and regions visiting Japan. The results suggest that the four dimensions of distance have different impacts on the purchasing behavior of tourists. Moreover, the quadratic model results further suggest the existence of an optimal point of distance. In the discussion, we proposed effective segmentation strategies to increase inbound tourism.

The Mediating Role of Real-Time Information Between Location-Based User-Generated Content and Tourist Gift Purchase Intention

“…Mkono and Tribe (2016) affirm that user-generated content provides information related to culture and features of a given tourism destination. The authors also argue that user-generated content can also popularise locations and tourist memorabilia such as souvenirs of specific locations (Bigne et al, 2021;Lu et al, 2018), which in turn leads to influence gift purchase intention of other tourists (Kavoura et al, 2020;Li & Katsumata, 2020;Tsiakali, 2018).…”

“…During domestic and international travel, purchasing souvenirs whether to serve as gifts or as personal memorabilia, is one of the prominent activities of travelers of different backgrounds (Murphy et al, 2010). Moreover, bringing home souvenirs makes a trip tangible for those who receive the souvenirs as gifts or for tourists themselves by expanding their consumption of the travel experience (Gordon, 1986;Li & Katsumata, 2020).…”

“…In this regard, our findings provide important managerial implications. Tourists prefer gifts that exemplify local culture and represent their travel destination (Gordon, 1986;Li & Katsumata, 2020). Thus, an innovative marketing approach is required for these products to reach tourists.…”

“…Still, a limited number of studies have evaluated gift purchase decisions of tourists (Gao et al, 2017), despite it being a common practice among tourists. Tourists tend to purchase gifts from the cultural and popular destination of the host country (Li & Katsumata, 2020). For instance, approximately 70% of tourists purchased gifts for their friends and families during their travels (Litirell et al, 1994).…”

National Culture and Culinary Exploration: Japan Evidence of Heterogenous Moderating Roles of Social Facilitation

“…Food is considered an essential part of a culture and the food preferences of tourists are shaped by their cultural background ( Jia, 2020 ; Kim and Huang, 2021 ). Tourism scholars have generated valuable insights into national culture and tourist experiences ( Seo et al, 2012 ; Li and Katsumata, 2020 ), by drawing on the framework of cultural dimensions by Hofstede (1980) . However, most studies are limited to comparing tourists from two or three cultures based on relatively small samples and those based on the framework of Hofstede often focus on a single dimension of the framework ( Jia, 2020 ).…”