A first research was carried out to understand the current perception of Japan and its tourist products among French travellers and what were the main obstacles to visit Japan. A wide “hybrid research programme” combining a qualitative phase and a quantitative phase for both B2B and B2C targets was carried out with telephone & face to face interviews with long haul destination travellers & wealthy travellers, an online survey with 600 travellers providing reputational research, as well as qualitative interviews with tour operators & travel agents.

Later on, the Japan Tourist Board requested Interface Tourism to conduct a market research exercise to evaluate the MICE potential for Japan in the French market. We undertook this activity with telephone interviews with MICE agencies; analysis of the results which allowed us to develop recommendations for the promotion of Japan in the MICE segment in France.