Leisure
Recreation, sports and other leisure activities
1. Sport and Entertainment
Golf is the most popular outdoor activity among Japanese executives and an important part of the business culture. It is part of their job and they often have to entertain clients with a round of golf or they plalf with their seniors to network within the company.
Professional baseball is the most popular spectator sport among television viewers followed by sumo. Other popular sports on television are J League football and professional golf tournaments.
Bowling is the most popular sporting activity in Japan with a participation rate of 35 percent followed by jogging (21 percent), swimming (20 percent), baseball (15 percent) and golf (11 percent).
For the Japanese, it is common to spend their leisure time outside home. During the weekends, families are seen at nature parks or dining out at fast food outlets. One of the most popular activities when going out, is karaoke, which dominates the Japanese culture. Karaoke is especially the favorite activity of the younger generation.
Although a form of gambling, the 'pachinko parlours' remained popular among the elderly, both alone and with friends. Cinemas still manage to atract the interest of the consumer, although the competition from te DVD format. In Japan, pubs are popular with daily earners after a workday. They usually hang out in bars with collegues of friends before going home.
2. Home Leisure Activities
The most popular home leisure activities of Japan are watching television, videos and DVD, listening to music, playing computer games and gardening. The consumer expenditure on leisure is relative stable in Japan.
2.1 Type of Home Leisure Activities
Home entertainment is one of the leisure activities the Japanese spend their free time on. On average, people in Japan spent 24.4 hours a week watching television in 2006, averaging 3.3 hours a day from Monday to Friday, 3.6 hours on Saturdays and 4.2 hours on Sundays. The television programme schedule changes every three months and new programmes are broadcast one after another. Sports, news shows, quiz shows, "wide show" (featuring news and gossips), and soap operas are popular in Japan. Japanese children still prefer the television to the PCs.
The introduction of the Nintendo Wii caused a decline in the amount of hours of watching television in the Japanese households. The Wii was launched in December 2006 and Nitendo sold more than one million consoles in this month. Japanese also loves mobile gaming: the majority of mobile consumers plays video games on mobile devices, both men and women.
Furthermore, watching videos/DVDs is a popular activity in Japan, with 45 percent of people watching them 22 times a year on average. The second most popular activity is listening to music with 42 percent, followed by computer games 22 percent and gardening 36 percent in 2006.
3. Tourism
The middle-aged and elderly as well as women in their 30s and early 40s were the major divers of growth in the tourist travel market as they have more time to travel. The more budget-conscious Japanese consumer begins to trael during the less expensive, less crowded off-season in order to benefit from discounts.
In addition, the adaption of a five-day week by schools and workplaces in 2005, enabled families to take their holidays during the off-season.
Domestic travel and tourism grew in 2005, backed by the new theme parks such as Universal Studios and the Disney Resort. The top domestic destination was Kanto, where Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea are located. It received 18 percent of all domestic travellers in 2005 and the average spending per domestic trip amounted to ¥33583.
