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Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

cnn.com

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Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#51

Post by The_Colonel »

lobochrome wrote: post #41
JSavageOne wrote: post #32

I'd imagine one of the largest reasons if not the largest would be the lack of vacation days, which the article doesn't even mention.

We have similar amounts of vacation than EU.

The article given below states that the average amount of taken vacation days is 9 per year (article is from 2015). In Europe, the typical amount is 25 paid vacation days (plus holidays), and you usually have to take it out (otherwise you'd have to be financially compensated, so companies usually pressure their employees to take it out fully).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/22/japan-long-hou...

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#52

Post by bombcar »

Shawnj2 wrote: post #45
bombcar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is so huge that you literally cannot visit another country by land (save Canada, aka Diet US; or Mexico, aka California Sur) - and there are definitely regional variations but it’s all much more similar than even a couple hundred miles in Europe. A common school trip in the USA is visiting Washington, DC; for some that’s a six+ hour flight. The same flight in most places in Europe would put you in Asia or Afri…

Mexico is culturally completely different than the US and definitely counts as another country lol. Canada mostly doesn’t except for a few regional chains and such but Mexico is very much not diet California in any way

You have to get pretty far into Mexico; Tijuana and LA are more similar than different. (This may be because LA is something like 50% Hispanic)

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#54

Post by jalapenos »

koheripbal wrote: post #42
makeitdouble wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoints on the last two: - South Korea - Thailand - Taiwan - Hawaii The CNN article does this too, but "traveling" doesn't just mean going to the US or EU. Japanese used to travel a lot to neighbour countries and that didn't cost that much, nor require much english skills. Now money is clearly a factor, but this would go deeper than travel and more into how many Japanese are giving up on many luxuries as they f…

Hawaii is far from Japan. Many many countries are closer to Japan than Hawaii

This is correct, but it has settled status regarding an acceptable holiday destination. I.e. while Russia is far closer, very few Japanese have had friends visit there on holiday. Hawaii on the otherhand is in "routine" holiday status, with an established Japanese-catering industry there.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#55

Post by thaumasiotes »

rwmj wrote: post #6
redeeman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lack of English skills if only there was some way to remedy this.

Countries that want Japanese tourists could learn Japanese?

That has definitely already happened in China and Thailand.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#56

Post by bemmu »

wrp wrote: post #27

It's the expected inconvenience. TFA points this out rather indirectly, but I've been hearing from Japanese for years that they are dissuaded from travel by the expected hassles of going to countries that run less smoothly than Japan (which is nearly any place).

Aside from natural disasters, (almost?) anywhere is also more dangerous than Japan.

Also, the expected length of a trip abroad is shorter. There are half as many vacation days as in many other countries. By the time you're done with flights and acclimated to the time difference, you need to start thinking about going back. This also makes the per-day cost of a trip high.

After moving to Japan I've also become reluctant to travel!

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#57

Post by RugnirViking »

BariumBlue wrote: post #21
RugnirViking wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

id probably add to that: Lots of hostile neighbors. Korea/japan (both koreas) relations aren't great, netiher are russia nor china. Meaning you gotta fly a long long way to get anywhere. Similar to how there are many people from american midwest whove never been abroad. living in europe all my life, almost everyone has been abroad here, but much much fewer have ever left europe, which is essentially what japanese peo…

Taiwan and Japan have friendly relations, and supposed to be a popular destination for Japanese tourists (this I couldn't find real stats on this). There is also internal Japanese tourism - such as to Okinawa or Kyoto

yep as I understand it taiwan is fairly common. Certainly I know a lot of people in taiwan speak some japanese

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#58

Post by The_Colonel »

RugnirViking wrote: post #9
kalleboo wrote: post #3

Anecdotally from friends, I'd say the top three reasons are: * Lack of money * Lack of time off from work * Lack of English skills, making travel abroad intimidating. In previous generations this was counteracted by bus tours with Japanese guides, but those are seen as lame by the younger generations.

id probably add to that: Lots of hostile neighbors. Korea/japan (both koreas) relations aren't great, netiher are russia nor china. Meaning you gotta fly a long long way to get anywhere. Similar to how there are many people from american midwest whove never been abroad. living in europe all my life, almost everyone has been abroad here, but much much fewer have ever left europe, which is essentially what japanese peo…

Europe is quite uniquely positioned as a starting point for travelling. There's a big diversity in a small amount of area, with cheap travel options (within Europe flights are cheap). If you want to travel farther, Europe is still "centrally located" relative to the land mass.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#59

Post by bombcar »

positr0n wrote: post #50
bombcar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is so huge that you literally cannot visit another country by land (save Canada, aka Diet US; or Mexico, aka California Sur) - and there are definitely regional variations but it’s all much more similar than even a couple hundred miles in Europe. A common school trip in the USA is visiting Washington, DC; for some that’s a six+ hour flight. The same flight in most places in Europe would put you in Asia or Afri…

I live Dallas area, Texas. The whole area is commonly referred to as "North Texas". A common vacation is to drive to the mountains in Colorado, a state to the north west. To even get out of Texas from my house is an 8 hour, 500 mile (800k km) drive. It is crazy how big the US is.

Texas is big even for the USA; and I believe you can find almost every possible biome there (except polar perhaps) without leaving the state. Whereas some Eastern states are so small that the majority of people leave and return every week.

Re: Why Japan has so many ‘never travelers’

#60

Post by midasuni »

makeitdouble wrote: post #37
Brajeshwar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the "Lack of English skills" easily solved with the plethora of translator devices and apps these days? About a decade+ ago (I think 2010-11), I remember a woman who sat next to me after Narita, traveling "to explore India." She carried a tiny device the size of a typical compact (make-up thing for person who wants/needs to make up). She had no idea about English but can communicate via her device and it was pr…

It's nice if you don't have to use it much. Otherwise it's a device that makes all your communication lag, and you'te also putting a lot of faith in the translation when you're alone in a foreign country. For ordering at a restaurant it's fine. For trying to find a way to go to the consulate because your bag was stolen, it's not ideal.

We coped with that decades ago before handhold computers with connection to enourmous global databases.

Nowadays you just put the address into google/Apple/etc maps, or get an Uber.

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