世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on research by Cross Marketing Inc regarding people’s views on restaurant search web sites. They interviewed 320 people who had used a restaurant search site by means of a private internet questionnaire; half of the sample were male, and a quarter in each of the age groups of their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

This particular segment of the market seems to have assumed the title グルメ, gurume, the Japanese transliteration of gourmet (actually from the French, not English), which is the reason that a number of the web sites listed below start with Guru-.

In my experience, Guru-Navi seems the first stop for most of the people I know; one benefit of the site is that many of the listed restaurants also have discount coupons available for printing out.

Q1: Which of the following sites have you used? (Sample size=320, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
GuruNavi	288	90.0%
Yahoo! Gourmet	184	57.5%
Gourmet Pia	109	34.1%
Gourmet Walker	79	24.7%
livedoor Gourmet	28	8.8%
Other	20	6.2%

In the Others category, the rather new Hot Pepper site, the offspring of the monthly free coupon magazine of the same name, was the most popular write-in choice.

Q2: When you find a restaurant on a search site, how do you usually get to the place? (Sample size=320)

Print out map and access info	65.0%
Write down access info by hand	12.5%
Forward map and address, etc to mobile phone	10.3%
Trust everything to memory	6.9%
Phone the restaurant before going	5.3%
Other	0.0%

Note that in Japan places are difficult to find as there are usually no street names or logical numbering orders, and shopping malls are often vast mazes. This explains to some degree the two-thirds who print things out and the few who rely on memory. There’s also the fact that on Guru-Navi at least the discount coupon appears on the same page as the map, so by by printing out the coupon you get the map at the same time.

Q3: When organising a party, etc, and you need to search for a venue, what way do you most often use? (Sample size=320)

	Votes	Percentage
Use a restaurant search site	145	45.3%
Leave to other people	46	14.4%
Go somewhere I know	45	14.1%
Search through a standard search site	44	13.8%
Use a magazine or book, etc	40	12.5%
Other	0	0.0%