International anime tourists’ experiences: a netnography of popular Japanese anime tourism destinations

This qualitative study, based on the cognitive-affective-conative model, applied netnography to analyze 2,312 online reviews from Google and TripAdvisor left by international anime tourists who visited four popular Japanese anime destinations. The objectives of this study include (1) determining the important aspects of the international anime tourism experience; (2) comparing between international Eastern and Western anime tourists’ experiences; (3) understanding the sentiments behind the online reviews posted by international anime tourists. In total, 33 sub-themes and 12 themes across 3 key dimensions – cognitive, affective, and conative, were unveiled by coding undertaken by three researchers. Among Eastern and Western tourists, the aspects related to communication, expectations, service, anime authenticity seeking, and destination information were rated noticeably differently. Practitioners are urged to investigate existing ticket purchasing processes, photo policy, food options and quality, and communication, to better serve the international anime tourists.