Tourist Expectations: A Comparative Study between Non-Asian and Taiwan/Hong Kong Tourists in Kanazawa, Japan

International tourists to Japan have attracted considerable attention in the Japanese tourism sector. In particular, tourists from Asia, China in particular, are increasingly recognized as an important target group. To accommodate the demands of foreign tourists, the tourism industry must investigate the satisfaction and preferences of such tourists, as well as the challenges encountered by both tourists and gastronomy sectors. By comparing the responses of tourists with those in the service sector, this study identified future tasks for inbound tourism. This study focused on tourists from Hong Kong and Taiwan. In a parallel questionnaire, employees of restaurants in Kanazawa City were interviewed. The results of the survey on tourists from Hong Kong and Taiwan were compared with the results from non-Asian tourists. A significant difference was observed as regards the communication between tourists and staff (i.e., the language barrier) between the two groups. In addition, the level of satisfaction on Wi-Fi Internet access is the lowest amongst all the survey items regardless of the tourists’ nationality.