Receiving Travel Souvenirs : The Effects of Experience Visiting Japan on Chinese Consumers

Chinese tourists who visited Japan in 2018 spent 803.3 billion yen (the highest of all countries). Many Chinese tourists purchase travel souvenirs as gifts. This study focuses on the recipient’s consumer behavior. A travel souvenir purchase is typically a one-time purchase by a tourist during a visit to a location. To increase the sales of travel souvenirs, it is important to promote repeat purchases among souvenir recipients, which requires the creation of brand awareness and an increase in brand accessibility. However, a recipient might easily recall the brand name if he / she visited Japan. This study aims to clarify the effects of the differences in a recipient’s experience visiting Japan on their repeat purchases and brand awareness after receiving souvenirs. This study uses an online survey of 825 Chinese individuals (male 410, female 415) in Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, and Shenzhen aged between 20 and 69 years who received souvenirs from Chinese tourists who visited Japan in 2016 or 2017. The results show the following. First, a recipient who visited Japan tends to buy the same souvenir received after he / she received it. Second, a recipient who visited Japan tends to have brand awareness of receiving souvenirs. The author classified recipients into four groups according to experience visiting Japan and brand awareness of receiving souvenirsdepartmental bulletin pape