Published papers

Hosting behaviours and experiences have gradually been acknowledged as influential factors in visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel. However, the challenges facing VFR hosts while hosting VFR travellers have not been well researched, especially for VFR hosts who are migrants from different cultural and language backgrounds. This study aims to explore the challenges of hosting friends and relatives who have different cultural and language backgrounds to the destination country using the case of Japanese migrant VFR hosts in Australia. Qualitative analysis revealed 12 challenges, which were grouped into three areas, leading to some hosts being reluctant and inactive in receiving VFR travellers. These challenges were rooted in communication difficulties, including the language barriers of their VFR travellers and the social obligations of VFR hosts. This study also suggests socio-cultural differences and living environments between VFR hosts living in the migration destination and VFR travellers living in the home country, making these challenges even greater despite sharing cultural backgrounds. Further research is required to uncover the patterns and impacts of each challenge based on the host and traveller types and to support the design of measures to develop the VFR market.

The authors define a "drone society" as a society in which problems are discovered and solved using drones and related digital technologies, and discuss the utilization of drones for realizing such a "drone society." First, examples of UAV/UAS usages in various industries are presented as well as robots and self-driving cars. Second, the authors discuss social acceptance, safe operation management, human resources development, and impacts on cities. These issues should be discussed in greater depth with citizens. Finally, necessary deregulation and feasibility studies are also pointed out. It seems desirable to conduct rule-making and social experiments by considering not only small UAV or UAS but also auto-pilot maritime drones, robotics and self-driving cars.

© 2018 Morita et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Introduction: Demographic changes as a result of evacuation in the acute phase of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster are not well evaluated. We estimated post-disaster demographic transitions in Minamisoma City - located 14-38 km north of the nuclear plant - in the first month of the disaster; and identified demographic factors associated with the population remaining in the affected areas. Materials and methods: We extracted data from the evacuation behavior survey administered to participants in the city between July 11, 2011 and April 30, 2013. Using mathematical models, we estimated the total population in the city after the disaster according to sex, age group, and administrative divisions of the city. To investigate factors associated with the population remaining in place after the disaster, a probit regression model was employed, taking into account sex, age, pre-disaster dwelling area, and household composition. Result

© 2018 Institute for Tourism. All rights reserved. The visiting friends and relatives (VFR) market is one of the largest and most rapidly growing global tourism markets. Although much research has been carried out on this market since the early 1990s, these studies have largely been in the Western context, with Asian VFR travellers receiving little attention. To extend our understanding of the international VFR market, this study focused on Japanese international students studying in Australia. Through a series of in-depth interviews with 26 students, their roles and experiences as VFR hosts and the behaviours of the VFR travellers who visited them were explored. The results show that the majority of the students not only played important roles in motivating their friends and relatives to visit their study destinations but also recognised these roles. A number of unique behaviours on the part of Japanese VFR travellers, such as accommodation use and information searches, were also observed. The study's findings extend our understanding of the VFR market. The study suggests that international students are important resources for tourism practitioners because they can trigger intern