An Empirical Study of the International-Tourism Management by a Model of Consumer Behaviour
The objective of this study is to analyse, empirica lly, the lengthier stay by foreigners and starting businesses by foreigners, using a model of consumer behaviour for a successful case of the management of international tourism. An important i ssue for tourism management common to many tourist sites is how the number of foreign tou rists is increased. In particular, a multi-lateralization or stabilization of revenue ca n be attained by increasing not only the number of short-stay tourists, which does tend to be changed, but also the number of tourists who stay on a long-term basis. Furthermore, taking in not only to urist income but also business investment from overseas contributes to the local development of a tourist site. If many foreigners reside in the locality and begin businesses, in addition to just going shopping as tourists, it is thought to lead t o an improvement in the local economy because of the direct investment from overseas. Moreover, when sources of knowledge or wisdom from overseas flow into a locality, it can even be expected that some transition or innovation in the society o r economy, that was not previously considered, may happen. On the other hand, although it may be e asy for a tourist site to increase the number of short-stay visitors temporarily by, for example, a particular event, cases which succeed in increasing the number of the lengthier stay or in starting bus inesses from overseas are scarce. In this study, we considered one of the ski resorts in Japan which has succeeded in rapidly increasing the number of the foreigners’ lengthier stay and the promotion of foreigner’s starting businesses in recent years. The success factors wer e investigated by presenting a questionnaire to foreign tourists there. As for the design methodolo gy of the research, environmental transitions, such as the recent Internet developments of social networks, were added to the consumer-behaviour process models of previous studies. The results show that the creation of a community c ontrolled by the foreigners where there was reliance and empathy, and a network of tourism resources, are clear success factors. On the other hand, neither the expansion of a one-way adve rtising campaign nor improvements in transportation had a significant correlation. In co nclusion, in order to expand the number of travellers and direct investment from overseas, the improvement of tourism resources by inter-regional associations and deregulation by the government, etc. are useful.