世論 What Japan Thinks

Japanese make lousy travellers, on the whole, I feel, and this survey from goo Ranking into worried before foreign travel backs up my opinions.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of January 2010 1,071 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were female, 19.9% in their teens, 29.5% in their twenties, 30.5% in their thirties, and 20.1% in their forties. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

My wife is a hopeless worrier about foreign travel, especially in contrast to me, as I go with just a vague idea of where might be nice to visit, yet she tries to draw up a detailed itinery. My main worry is whether or not I’ll get a chance to sit in an open cafe on a sunny afternoon having a hot coffee or a cool beer!

Number 13 is due to the fact that a lot of tours feature souvenir shops rather highly. I remember seeing a report about a cheap Hong Kong tour where you had to pay extra if you didn’t want to go to the Duty Free shopping centre.

Photo from slworking2 on flickr – I think his main worry is forgetting his battery charger…

Ranking result

Q: What worries do you have before going on overseas travel? (Sample size=1,071)

Rank		Score
1	That I’ll not get sick, not get robbed	100
2	That I won’t have trouble making myself understood	94.6
3	How it’s best to carry money around	79.1
4	Worry about going somewhere for the first time	77.6
5	Hotel facilities	73.5
6	Whether I can eat the food	70.1
7	How to get around at the destination	54.7
8	What sort of hotel I’ll be staying in	40.3
9	What sorts of clothes to pack	39.8
10	How to cope if the details of my booking differ when I arrive	39.0
11	Communication with the shop staff	31.1
12	Daily schedule not being delivered until right before travel	31.0
13	Whether I’ll be taken to lots of shopping opportunities	29.9
14	Since the flight isn’t decided until right before departure I cannot make other plans	28.1
15	Possibility of the tour being cancelled at the last minute if the minimum numbers for the tour isn’t reached	27.6
16	Don’t know why there’s alternative destinations	27.2
17	Airline not being decided until right before departure	25.8
18	Whether I’ll have too much baggage on the way back	25.4
19	Since I’ve not paid an extra fee, whether I’ll be able to sit beside my companion	23.1
20	How I’ll get on with the tour guide	22.3