Pattern of Chinese tourist flows in Japan: a Social Network Analysis perspective

Social Network Analysis (SNA) has been introduced into tourism and hospitality research. However, little research has specifically addressed the structural pattern of tourist flow network. Chinese travelers to Japan keep increasing and become the largest market for Japan’s inbound tourism. In order to understand the pattern of Chinese tourist flows in Japan, 430 itineraries from travel services and 458 itineraries from free independent tourists’ trip dairies were collected and SNA with evaluation indicators was employed to identify the nodes’ structure and the structural characteristics of Chinese tourist flows. The empirical analysis shows that distribution of Chinese tourist flows is disequilibrium and it mainly concentrates in the central Japan (Kanto, Chubu and Kinki region). Through node structure analysis by means of node centrality indicators, the roles and functions of destinations in the tourist flow network are recognized: core node, secondary core node, important node, common node and attached node. Moreover, empirical results indicate that 232 nodes and 981 ties constitute the Chinese tourist flow network and the structure of this network is complex. Overall it can be divided into five sub-regions with different patterns, which are summarized as: multi-center agglomeration structure, single center equilibrium structure, single center agglomeration structure, single center dispersion structure and multi-center equilibrium structure.