The survey on the relation between smart phone and travel, conducted by Hotels.com, finds that 78% of Japanese travelers choose smart phone as what they want to bring for traveling. The ratio was higher than 24% for travel guidebook. Also, the ratio of ‘smart phone motives me to choose activities more easily and travel more actively’ was 54%, and the ratio of ‘smart phone is an important information source to find interesting spots in traveling’ was 27%.
On the contrary, the usage hours of smart phone in traveling by a Japanese traveler were shorter with the average of 1.9 hours a day. Also, the usage times of SNS in traveling by a Japanese traveler was 42 minutes a day, shorter than the world average of 65 minutes a day. For Japanese travelers, the biggest reason for using SNS was ‘to know updated information on friends (59%).’
The ratio of Japanese travelers checking-in on SNS in a destination was just 15%, lower than 28% of the world average. Also, the ratio of Japanese travelers sharing travel experiences with photos on SNS was 20%, lower than 42% of the world average.
Interestingly, the ratio of Japanese travelers posting selfies in a destination was just 26%, much lower than 44% of the world average. Japanese travelers preferred to share tourist spots and landscapes (36%) and foods and restaurants (33%) on SNS.
The survey targeted 9,000 travelers in the world, out of whom Japanese travelers were 300.
