In FY 2018, we first focused on literature review in the field of distribution channels and in particular tourism distribution channels. unlike the research gap on Japanese tourism distribution channels, a considerable volume of studies have beed conducted overseas. However, nearly all of them have concentrated on the high-volume, low-price travel market. In recent years, the growth in global gross domestic product and high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) have caused the luxury travel market to expand. The same tendency is occurring in Japanese inbound travel market.Based on the literature review and in order to contribute more both to the theoretical research gap and tourism practitioners, we shifted the research direction relatively and focused more on inbound luxury tourism distribution channels in Japan.
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Second, PI Wang interviewed informants from 17 different outbound tour operators, mainly targeting on luxury travel market. Interviews were first conducted with tradeshow participants during the ILTM Cannes (International Luxury Travel Market, the largest global B2B tradeshow specializing in luxury travel) in December. PI Wang also interviewed several informants in Paris. We have collected interview data from overseas much more than we planed, which is a big plus to our research.
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Third, we have summarized a part of our interview results and submitted to an international academic conference and are waiting for peer review result currently.