The purpose of this study was to find answers to the following three questions:
- What are the determinant factors when Japanese tourists consider Sweden as their travel destination?
- Is there a fit between those determinant factors and factors where the Swedish tourism industry is competitively strong?
- How should Sweden as a destination be marketed and positioned to the Japanese market in order to increase Japanese tourists?
The field of interest for this thesis was to apply destination competitiveness factors invented by earlier researchers in the area on particular segments of the tourism market, in this case the marketing of Sweden to the Japanese tourism market.
Research question 1: determinant factors
- What are the determinant factors when Japanese tourists consider Sweden as their travel destination?
The relatively large importance of natural resources shows that the Japanese tourists considers Sweden a destination you go to for its natural beauty, rather than its cultural resources, like history and cultural arts. This is not extremely surprising, since Sweden is a big country with a small population, leaving large areas free from human habitation and lets animals roam free in forests and mountains.
However, Sweden also has a long and rich history, which could be regarded as an attractive reason to visit the country for some people. Our sample, consisting mainly of young Japanese adults in their 20’s and 30’s, seem to be relatively uninterested in the
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historical sites that Sweden has to offer. Cuisine was shown to be a more important cultural factor.
If we instead look closer at the natural resources factor and its sub factors, we see that climate, e.g. the seasons, temperature and the weather of a destination, was regarded as the most important sub factor, in contrast to wildlife which had a very low score. A possible reason for the high level of importance on this factor might be that Sweden, along with the other Scandinavian countries, has a unique climate with mild temperature all year round despite its latitude. Winters are mild, but often rich in snow, while summers are cool with an average temperature of 17°C. For visitors from Japan, Sweden can serve as an escape from the often very hot and humid Japanese summers.
Another important uniqueness related to the climate factor, is the changes in the amount of daylight during the year. Summertime, Stockholm has 18 hours of daylight every day, while Kiruna in the north of Sweden has 24 hours of daylight every day. It never gets dark. During winters, the sun never rises over parts of northern Sweden. If Japanese tourists consider these kinds of unique climate characteristics to be determinant factors when choosing traveling destinations, they should be emphasized in the marketing and positioning of Sweden to the Japanese market.
In the range of activities factor, the Japanese tourists seemed to consider exciting, unusual and bold adventure experiences to be the determinant reasons for visiting Sweden. Cultural and educational experiences, as well as relaxing and stress reducing activities seemed not to be the main reasons for considering travel to Sweden. This result is not extremely surprising, since we have already seen that they seem to be attracted by the natural beauty and climate of Sweden, rather than its cultural resources.
The huge, unpopulated areas of forests and mountains in Sweden also make it an ideal destination for providing these kinds of activities. When marketing and positioning Sweden to a younger target market in Japan, promotion of adventure and nature related activities should be emphasized, rather than historic and cultural ones.
One surprising result was that the Japanese tourists seem to consider service quality as unimportant. It is surprising because Japan is often regarded as having one of the
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highest service level standards in the world, with a culture that often puts high pressure on people working in the service and tourism industry.
Accommodation also was a factor that seemed to be relatively important for the Japanese participants.
Research question 2: fit between supply and demand factors
- Is there a fit between those determinant factors and factors where the Swedish tourism industry is competitively strong?
Tourism experts regarded natural resources as one of Sweden’s most competitive strengths. This indicates a fit between the competitive offers that Sweden has, and the aspects that the Japanese tourists believe are important. Natural scenery was regarded as the strongest sub factor according to the tourism experts. The experts’ opinions of the range of activities sub factors showed that Sweden’s adventure oriented activities seem to be one of the competitive strengths. This is also provides for a fit between the competitive strengths of Sweden and the perceptions of importance that Japanese tourists had towards this factor.
The fact that the Japanese tourists believed accommodation to be an important determinant factor is also interesting, since results indicated that accommodation was a relatively strong competitive factor. Combining the different important and strong factors to create an offer that Japanese tourists might find very attracting, might be a way to increase Japanese tourists to Sweden.
Sweden offers several unique types of accommodation that are considered to be
“adventurous”, “exciting” and “unusual” ways of living close to nature. One example is the Treehotel located outside Luleå in the north of Sweden, where some of Scandinavia’s top architects have created several futuristic hotel rooms up in the treetops in a forest. There is also a spa with a wood-fired hot tub. Another example is the Ice Hotel in the very northern part of Sweden. It is completely made of snow and ice and is rebuild every fall since it melts away every summer. Activities like snowmobiling, dog sledding or reindeer are also available. These two types of accommodation bring together both the unique climate and nature (ice, forests) of
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Sweden together with an adventurous, exciting experience. Trying to combine these factors into the tourism offers that are promoted in Japan might help to create an attractive image of Sweden as a tourism destination and increase visitors.
Since the cultural resources and the tourism infrastructures sub factors had too much inconsistency in the expert opinions, there was no way of assessing the relative strength of these sub factors for the supply side.
The tourism experts’ opinions also give support to this positioning strategy, since there seem to be a fit with the experts’ opinions on natural resources as a competitive strength, and the Japanese tourists’ perceptions of its importance. However, the experts did not perceive the climate factor as a competitive strength. Instead they regarded natural scenery as the strongest competitive factor.
Research question 3: marketing and positioning strategy for the Japanese market
- How should Sweden as a destination be marketed and positioned to the Japanese market in order to increase Japanese tourists?
In the light of the above results, it is clear that Sweden’s competitive strengths lie in its natural resources and its image of a destination full of adventures and exciting activities close to nature. Because of the results we have seen in this study, it should also be positioned as a place of adventure, natural beauty, unique climate and exciting ways of living. The goal should be to target young Japanese people who seek exciting and adventurous experiences.
The naming and ranking of tourism competitors gave rise to some interesting questions.
The Japanese tourists most frequently named Norway and Finland as the closest competing tourism destinations. When analyzing the ranking order, I found that Finland was the destination that seemed most attractive for the Japanese participants. None of the tourism experts named Finland as a competitor to Sweden. Instead they named Denmark and Norway as the closest international tourism competitors. It is difficult to say why so many participants perceived Finland as more attractive and it would require another study to explore those reasons deeper. One possible reason is that Finland is the
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home of Finnair, an airline that is focusing strongly on East Asian destinations and therefore conducts more marketing efforts towards those markets. Or it could be that the official Finnish tourism organization is focusing more on the Japanese markets. When comparing the official tourism web pages of Sweden (Visitsweden.com) and Finland (Visitfinland.com), only Finland’s site has Japanese language as an option on the front page.
The naming of competitors also provided stimulation for the discussion of what really characterizes a destination competitor. Some tourism experts named the closest neighbors to Sweden, Denmark and Norway as the competitors, while other experts named destinations very far away, but perhaps with similar offerings that Sweden has, like New Zealand and Canada. They are all relatively mild, Western countries, rich in natural resources and have not very big populations. Are the other Scandinavian countries ought to be regarded as complementing destinations or as competitors?
Tourists coming from countries far away, like Japan, might want to make the most use of their time and visit more than just one destination, and in Scandinavia’s case it is easy to travel between several countries during one trip. On the other hand, in some cases the Scandinavian countries can also be regarded as competitors since visitors might have limited time, and have to choose between a few destinations that seems to be the most attractive ones to visit.
When creating a positioning strategy for Sweden as a destination, it is important to also know the relative competitive positions of the closest competing countries, which we have seen, are likely to be Finland, Norway and Denmark. Since Sweden has similar natural scenery and climate as its neighbors, it might be necessary to use other factors to differentiate from them. One way of doing this would be to look at the factors that the Japanese tourists considered important and use them to come up with newer, creative offers to tourists. It could be using cuisine, accommodation or adventure activities, which all were factors that scored high according to this study’s results. By combining these factors with the natural resources and the climate of Sweden, a new and creative package of tourism promotion aimed at the Japanese market could be successful in increasing the amount of Japanese tourists to Sweden.
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