APPLYING IMPORTANCE-PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS FOR JAPANESE SENIOR TRAVELERS TO HAWAII

Seniors are a growing segment among Japanese outbound travelers. Given that Hawaii is one of the most visited destinations by Japanese travelers, it is expected that the proportion of seniors will continue to grow in accordance with social trends of aging adults in Japan. The purpose of this article is to examine the satisfaction of Japanese senior travelers based on their expectations of important destination attributes of the Hawaiian Islands in relation to the travelers' performance judgment of these attributes. This study employs an Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) to determine critical attributes of this destination. A focus group with tourism industry professionals resulted in 15 distinct attributes of Hawaii as a tourist destination. Respondents rated the importance level of each attribute on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = not important to 6 = extremely important. In addition, respondents evaluated Hawaii's performance of these same destination attributes on another 6-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = very poor to 6 = excellent. Questions also focused on the travelers' trip-related characteristics and demographics. Respondents were selected from Japanese travelers who were 20 years or older, and had visited Hawaii for pleasure travel. Of the 211 questionnaires collected, 73 of the surveys were completed by Japanese travelers over the age of 50. Of this group, senior travelers were mostly satisfied with the destination attributes of Hawaii, specifically those factors that were related to Hawaii's natural resources as well as the characteristics related to a comfortable trip. Interestingly, the features related to physical activities such as golfing, water sports, and outdoor activities were not viewed as important travel destination attributes for Hawaii for both seniors and the younger Japanese travelers. On the other hand, improvement in local transportation and accommodations were destination attributes that travelers felt needed attention. These results provide some useful insights for developing effective marketing strategies to attract Japanese senior travelers to Hawaii, as well as the usefulness of using the IPA methodology.