🏞 Background: Inbound Tourism Growth & the Need for VOC

Japan’s inbound tourism market has seen rapid growth, creating major opportunities for local governments and tourism businesses. In Aichi Prefecture, top source markets include Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam—reflecting increasing inbound demand.

MEITETSU Creative Life Institute, which operates retail businesses like convenience stores and souvenir shops across Aichi, serves as a key touchpoint for foreign visitors. However, traditional tourism statistics and POS data do not reveal deep insights such as why travelers choose certain products or what experiences they’re seeking. To reduce missed opportunities and drive customer satisfaction and sales, it became essential to collect and analyze richer data to understand purchase motivations, trends, and experience expectations.

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⚠️ Key Challenges in Leveraging Data

To fully utilize inbound data, the team identified three major barriers:

1. Limits of Existing Data
   • Government stats and POS data provide trends but lack detail on purchasing behavior and product preferences.
2. Process Bottlenecks
   • No structured process existed for timely VOC collection, analysis, or usage—making it difficult to reflect feedback in marketing or customer experience (CX) strategies.
3. Lack of Data Democratization
   • VOC data was siloed, often inaccessible to frontline teams or other departments. As a result, marketing decisions were often made in isolation.

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💡 The Solution: Building a VOC Platform for Inbound Tourists

Together, MEITETSU Creative Life Institute and Koeeru developed a full-stack solution to collect, analyze, and apply VOC from inbound visitors.

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① Collecting In-Trip VOC at Airport Stores

To understand the full customer journey (before, during, and after travel), VOC was collected during the trip (“tabi-naka”) at a FamilyMart inside Centrair Airport. Multilingual surveys gathered both image and text data from approx. 150 travelers.

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② Global Research for Pre- and Post-Trip Insights

Using Koeeru’s global panel network, the team surveyed frequent travelers to Aichi from six key markets: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
→ 300 responses per country for a total of 1,800 inbound VOC samples.

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③ Building the Inbound Tourist VOC Data Platform (VOCDP)

A centralized platform was developed to process and analyze multilingual text, quantitative data, and image inputs. Local-language responses were translated for consistent insights across the company.

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④ Visualizing VOC Insights

To maximize the impact of VOC, the team implemented 3 layers of data visualization:

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✅ Results from VOC-Driven Actions

1. Better Signage and In-Store Navigation

Based on comments like “It’s hard to find things”, new signs and multilingual maps were introduced using pictograms. This led to improvements in Net Promoter Score (NPS).

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2. Smarter Product Ordering

The team analyzed VOC data on what visitors bought and wanted to buy. This led to optimized product orders and the creation of POP materials reflecting traveler voices. There’s even a new product proposal in the works that leverages the insight that typical Japanese snacks are viewed as souvenirs by foreign tourists.

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3. Boosted Staff Engagement

Store staff reported increased motivation:

“It felt meaningful to act on feedback from real customers.”
“I was touched by positive comments from foreign visitors.”

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🔭 Future Outlook: Regional VOC Collaboration

The pilot proved the value of VOC-driven inbound marketing. The next step is to expand this platform across the Chubu region by collaborating with local governments and tourism operators. The goal is to accelerate regional revitalization and take inbound strategies to the next level through shared data and joint innovation.