Preliminary examination of scenery images for tourism promotion using a neuromarketing approach

Abstract

As the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease caused great damage on inbound tourism in Japan, developing an effective promotion way to revitalize the inbound tourism is an important issue. Since many inbound tourists to Japan have expected healing and relaxing for their travels, motivating prospective tourists who look for these comforts is a key to increase the number of inbound tourists for the future. In this study, the authors conducted an experiment to examine whether photos (still image) or videos (moving image) of scenery are more effective to stimulate tourist's interests to visit Japan with an approach utilizing neuromarketing. In the experiment we recorded the brain activity of subjects, which is monitored as the amount of cerebral blood flow change by using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and obtained their impression evaluation for each scenery image by using Semantic Differential (SD) method. The results of the experiment which showed the amount of cerebral blood flow change were similar for both still images and moving images. Moreover, the results of SD measurement were also similar for both still and moving images. Additionally, it illustrated that the mean values of SD adjectives related to healing were higher than other adjectives. These results suggest that the effectiveness of using photos or videos of scenery for promoting tourism on SNS or website does not have a big difference. In addition, the photos or videos which often give relaxing feelings can be effective to motivate prospective tourists who seek a relaxing time in Japan.