Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting recently conducted the survey on farm stay in Japan targeting 107 related organizations in December 2017. The results show that the largest ratios were 66.2% of ‘tendency to increase’ for international travelers and 43.3% of ‘unchanged’ for Japanese travelers, as the graph below shows.
Farm stay is defined as local lifestyle experience or local exchanges in farm or fishery villages in traditional houses or local farmers’ or fishers’ houses, which is jointly promoted by Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Japan Tourism Agency.
Major farm stay style for Japanese travelers is an educational group trip (67%). For international travelers, an educational group trip (39.1%) and an individual trip (36.2%) are even.
Regarding the average nights, the ratio of one to two nights accounts for 95.2% of all Japanese farm stay travelers, and for international farm stay travelers, the ratio is 59%, followed by 34.6% of day trip.
Regarding the average cost on an experience program, the largest ratio is 50% for 2,000 to 5,000 JPY in day trip, followed by 21.1% for 2,000 JPY or less and 14.5% for 5,000 to 10,000 JPY. In overnight farm stay including an experience program, the largest ratio is 45.8% for 5,000 to 10,000 JPY, followed by 34.9% for 10,000 to 15,000 JPY.
The survey also finds that 65% of targeted organizations prepare both overnight and day trip plans, and other results are 17.5% for overnight plan only and 12.6% for day trip plan only.
The most popular season is summer (June to August) for individual farm stay travelers with the ratio of 79.2%. For education group trips, the seasonality is leveling over spring, summer and autumn according to outdoor education programs. In addition, 60% answer that farm stay and ordinary trip have been combined.
