Since the enactment of the "Basic Law for the Promotion of Tourism" in 2007 and establishment the Japan Tourism Agency the following year, various initiatives to promote tourism have been ongoing. One of these is the development of statistics on the number of tourists. This data serves as an indicator that is relevant not only to tourism but also to urban development and disaster prevention measures, but the compilation of this data is a heavy burden on local governments, and the accuracy of the figures is low, making it difficult to utilize. This is where human flow data is attracting attention. The Japan Tourism Agency has also approved its use, and its implementation has begun in various parts of the country. What is human flow data, and what changes will its introduction bring? We spoke with Kengo IMAI and Yuki HODA of the DX Business Promotion Dept. Digital Service Div..
INDEX
- Challenges in tourist visitor statistics
- The use of human flow data contributes to increased efficiency and improved accuracy in surveys.
- Tourism and urban development policies are changing based on human flow data
- What Pacific Consultants can do
Challenges in tourist visitor statistics
Because the definition of terms and survey methods for tourist visitor statistics varied from region to region, the Japan Tourism Agency established common standards in December 2009, shortly after its establishment, for the selection of tourist destinations, survey methods, and implementation methods for parameter surveys. Based on these standards, it requested local governments to compile data quarterly and annually. Municipalities survey the number of tourists visiting their region for tourism purposes at selected tourist destinations, categorizing Japanese tourists (in four groups: day-trippers and overnight guests, and in-prefecture and out-of-prefecture visitors) and foreign visitors (in two groups: day-trippers and overnight guests). Furthermore, as a parameter survey, they conduct detailed questionnaire surveys and report the aggregated results to the prefectures. The prefectures then compile the data and submit it to the national government.
However, many municipalities find the surveys burdensome. This is because the current surveys are time-consuming and expensive, yet the accuracy of the collected data is low, making it difficult to use them to inform future policies.
This survey, while requesting tourist destinations to report figures and answer questionnaires, offers little benefit to the data providers. As a result, the methods of aggregation may differ depending on the figures provided, making it a challenge to standardize data quality. Furthermore, when organizing the figures, it is essential to convert, for example, the total number of visitors to multiple locations into the actual number of visitors, but the methods used for this are inconsistent, and since it is done manually, errors in input and aggregation are unavoidable.
Furthermore, the accuracy of data regarding inbound foreign tourists is even lower. While accommodation facilities can determine the number of guests by country through passport checks, obtaining detailed data at individual tourist destinations is currently difficult unless the facilities themselves proactively implement data collection measures to understand the demographics of their guests.
The use of human flow data contributes to increased efficiency and improved accuracy in surveys.
Therefore, the use of human flow data held by private companies has been considered.
human flow data refers to information that records the movement and flow of people. It is possible to quantify and understand "when, where, what kind of people, and how many people are there." This data is mainly collected using location information data obtained from mobile devices such as smartphones, as well as communication data with base stations, or logs from the use of GPS-enabled apps such as maps, weather forecasts, and searches for nearby restaurants. personal information is anonymized and collected with the consent of the users. Based on this location information, it is possible to understand the number of people and their attributes by segmenting them into arbitrary shapes and understanding them at the level of specified municipalities or tourist spots, or to understand their movements, such as how they moved from place to place. Furthermore, since this data can be collected automatically, there is no need for manual interviews at each facility, input, aggregation, and compilation as in the past, making it possible to obtain highly accurate information efficiently.
The Japan Tourism Agency also recognized the effectiveness of human flow data and revised its conventional "Common Standard Survey Guidelines for Tourism Inbound Statistics" in 2023, explicitly stating that it would be possible to "understand the number of tourists using human flow data."
Key differences between conventional surveys and the use of human flow data
| Conventional surveys | human flow data | |
| How to Obtain | Acquired individually by human effort | Location information from smartphones is collected simultaneously. |
| Target period | Survey day only | Any period (including retrospective periods) |
| Time and effort | Manual calculations are time-consuming. | Fast aggregation with automatic calculations |
| Information available | The focus is on the number of tourists and overnight guests. | In addition to the number of tourists and overnight guests, data on length of stay, travel patterns, and modes of transportation are also available. |
Tourism and urban development policies are changing based on human flow data
human flow data provides a detailed view of tourist movements within a region, enabling the development of various evidence-based policies. For example, it can be used for marketing to encourage visits and spending, and for considering effective promotions that target specific demographics. Alternatively, it can be used to promote multi-destination travel and secure secondary transportation tailored to the actual needs of tourists. If a municipality has an airport, it can also be used to attract airlines based on the number of visitors from different countries and regions of origin. Furthermore, it can be used to measure the effectiveness of events, consider measures to mitigate overtourism, and contribute to various other measures in the tourism sector.
Even among inbound tourists, there are often differences between Asian and Western tourists in terms of destinations, time of day, length of stay, and duration of visits. For example, if it becomes clear that East Asians are more active in the evening and at night, while Westerners are more active during the daytime, measures such as extending closing times and providing multilingual support could be considered to further stimulate consumption among East Asian tourists. Furthermore, understanding people flow can be used for disaster prevention and mitigation measures, such as urban development and the formulation of evacuation guidance plans. Dialogue with what emerges from human flow data about how to revitalize one's region can provide many hints for considering future tourism and urban development policies.
What becomes possible through the use of human flow data (in the tourism sector)
What Pacific Consultants can do
Pacific Consultants, which had been focusing on the potential of “human flow data” even before the COVID-19 pandemic, launched the foot traffic statistics service "Nation-Wide Movement Statistics" in December 2020 through a collaborative effort with SoftBank Corp. (service provided via SoftBank Corp.).This service combines data from tens of millions of mobile phone base stations—provided by the company—with Pacific Consultants’ expertise and know-how in infrastructure, including urban and transportation planning.By cross-referencing usage patterns of various modes of transportation—estimated from location data—with statistical data such as population figures, the service provides highly accurate mobility data extrapolated to cover Japan’s entire population of 120 million.
Furthermore, in January 2024, we released "Nationwide Inbound Statistics" as one of our company services.
This service utilizes GPS location data obtained from smartphone app usage by over 1.6 billion users worldwide and over 60 million users in Japan, provided by Azira, one of the world's largest providers of human flow data. Based on this vast amount of user human flow data, our service has been enhanced with high value through our company unique logic. Covering data for approximately half of the Japanese population and approximately one-third of inbound tourists, it provides highly accurate information regarding visits, stays, accommodations, and travel.
Our strength as a leading construction consulting company lies in our ability to interpret data analysis results and provide comprehensive support across various related fields, including tourism, transportation, urban development, disaster prevention, and energy. Furthermore, our company manage the provided data with user-friendly licenses while prioritizing the protection of personal information. This allows local governments to make the data publicly available, gathering a wide range of private sector expertise to consider regional development strategies.
our company has been commissioned by the Hokkaido Prefectural Government to conduct the "Hokkaido Tourism Inbound Survey Project," which utilizes human flow data We are carrying out tasks such as holding explanatory meetings for all 179 municipalities in Hokkaido that will be responsible for the actual survey reporting, creating tourism inbound survey reports for previous years using human flow data, and analyzing the differences and comparisons with survey results using conventional methods. Currently, we are supporting the preparation for switching to human flow data from fiscal year 2027 onwards, and we are expanding similar initiatives nationwide.
our company will continue to leverage human flow data to support the streamlining and acceleration of tourism visitor statistics, and contribute to data-driven policy planning and implementation, including tourism policies.
