Research on the Foreign Direct Investment Factors of Japanese Hotel Industry in Taiwan-Taking Okura Hotel as an Example

Due to the impact of COVID-19 in 2019, the global hotel industry has been severely impacted by the disconnection of the tourism industry. However, even with the impact of the epidemic, the Japanese hotel industry’s investment in Taiwan has not stopped. What are the factors that drive the Japanese hotel industry to defy the threat of the epidemic and choose Taiwan as its destination for foreign direct investment? This is the research goal of this article. This article intends to adopt Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM)migration theory to construct the possible factors of why the Japanese hotel industry chooses Taiwan as its foreign direct investment destination. These factors consist of three effects to describe Japan Okura hotel’s migration. First, the push effect refers to factors that induce people to leave their place of origin. Second, the pull effect refers to factors that attract people to a destination. Third, the mooring effect refers to intervention variables for push and pull effects that facilitate or inhibit the determination of movement. The finding is that push and pull factors still play an active role in promoting Okura Hotel’s investment in Taiwan, even if the influence of some factors is slightly reduced due to the shift in international conditions. With the development of globalization and high technology, mooring factors are no longer the reason that hinders Japanese Okura’s investment in Taiwan. Combined with push and pull factors, PPM migration model can fully explain why the Japanese hotel industry chooses to conduct foreign direct investment in Taiwan, even if it is affected by COVID-19.It’s just that COVID-19 has not stopped so far, and the unstable situation on both sides of the strait may impact the original PPM model and affect the results of the analysis. It is worth further observation and research by subsequent researchers.


Research Motivation
The Japanese Tourism White Book (2015) pointed out that the number of tourists visiting Japan reached 10.36 million in 2013, ranking 27 in the world in the ranking of foreign tourists accepted survey, and 8 in Asia. As the Japanese government will sign letters of intent for tourism with other countries and the relaxation of related tourism rules, it is expected that more tourists will be brought to Japan. Therefore, European and American hotels, which mainly target Asian tourists to Japan, are also accelerating their investment in the Japanese domestic market.
At the same time, however, the Japanese's income has declined due to factors such as the increase in the consumption tax rate and the increase in import prices, which has affected the willingness of accommodation and tourism in Japan. The round-trip travel on the same day just replaced it (Table 1) Therefore, as the domestic tourism market in Japan is shrinking and the competition for accommodation for foreign tourists is becoming increasingly fierce, how to obtain economies of scale and scope through foreign investments has become a major issue in the hotel industry that is closely related to the tourism industry. Therefore, this study will first briefly review the foreign investment process of the Japanese hotel industry, and then sort out the current status of Japanese hotel industry's investment in Taiwan. Taking the Okura Hotel, a representative Japanese hotel with great potential for internationalization, as an example, we use the push, pull, and mooring theory (PPM) commonly used in international investment by companies to analyze the main reasons why Okura Hotel invests in Taiwan. Due to the rapid changes in new technologies and innovation, ppm was also adopted to prove why individuals switch from traditional to augmented / virtual reality (AR/VR) content services (Sanghyun Kim et al., 2020) or continued participation of crowd workers has become essential issues affecting the growth of the crowd logistics platform (Liuan Huang et al., 2020). When the "green "concept has been gradually accepted by the public, and thereby strongly promoting "green" business forms and social innovation, ppm becomes a persuasive psychological model (Qing Ye et

Rising Operation Costs and Shrinking Market Scales
President Okura Ogita said that in Japan, Okura's land acquisition costs and construction costs account for a high proportion of revenue. Affected by the declining birth rate and aging population, the number of Japanese tourists traveling in the country is expected to continue to decrease, which will further increase the personnel costs in Japan. When companies are deploying overseas, they must ensure that Published by SCHOLINK INC.
they can obtain cheap labor to reduce personnel costs. At this point, Taiwan has this advantage, which in turn is able to attract Japanese companies.
In addition, Ogita also pointed out that although the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan has increased, only 30% of foreign tourists will use Japanese local hotels, and the rate is still not high enough. Therefore, it is imperative for Okura to ensure income through the expansion of overseas business.

Exchange Rate Changes
Changes in exchange rates have a great impact on companies' foreign investments. Compared with the currencies of the host countries, the appreciation of the yen will make the yen look favorable and have a positive impact on Japanese companies. Nakamura and Oyama (1998) also pointed out that Japanese companies that make foreign direct investment in Asian countries are more sensitive to exchange rate changes. Therefore, taking advantage of the opportunity of the yen's appreciation, Okura's leap-forward deployment in Taiwan or even Asia has become a very reasonable behavior.

Encouragement from the Japanese Government and the Willing of Okura
It can be seen from Table 2 that the amount and ratio of purchases from Japan by Japanese wholesalers who make foreign direct investment is increasing. Table 5,6 shows that Japanese non-manufacturers who have made foreign direct investment have increased their employment in Japan, and the rate of increase in domestic employment is higher than that of Japanese non-manufacturers who have not made foreign direct investment. Therefore, the Japanese government hopes to encourage foreign investment in the tourism industry that is more conservative in internationalization, and through its spillover effect on Japan's domestic economy, alleviate the negative impacts of economic activation and employment opportunities on Japan due to the declining birthrate and aging population. Okura's external layout can be said to respond to the expectations of the Japanese government.
Okura was also forced to temporarily suspend its internationalization due to the collapse of the bubble economy. It was not until 2002 that it restarted. The initial goal was to become a medium-scale international hotel chain, rather than a super-large international hotel chain in Europe and the United States. In order to build a global network, it is the important strategy to reduce investment risks and prioritize investment in Taiwan, which is located in the nearest Asian and pro-Japanese.

Growth Potential and Geography of Emerging Countries
As far as the Japanese hotel industry is concerned, Asia is mostly a market with a large population, rising per capita income, and the most potential for development (Table 3). Secondly, in terms of geography, Asian countries are not far away from Japan. Therefore, Asia has always been the region where Okura hopes to build a hotel network. Taiwan, which has the above two characteristics and is in an Asian hub position, has been designated by Okura as a key region in Asia. Since the resumption of overseas investment in 2002, Okura has actively conceived the layout as an important outpost for to return to Asia.

Table 3. Changes in Taiwan Daily Salary (Unit: USD)
Year Taiwan Japan interestingness of the destination's culture, entertainment, leisure, and environment (Bogue, 1977).
That is similar to the concept of "variety seeking". For instance, consumers with a tendency to diversify inquiry are willing to take risks and continue to try different brands to meet their desires. In other words, consumers with such behavioral habits rarely have loyalty, and they will continue to try new products to satisfy themselves. Therefore, a single product is no longer to satisfy such customers. On the contrary, a combination of entire products is needed (Lattin & McAlister, 1985). This concept has also been applied in consumer conversion studies and found that customers with this tendency have higher intention of conversion (Bansal et al., 2005). Therefore, the stronger the diversified inquiry behavior, the higher the chance of switching behavior.  Nilsen et al., 2012). In other words, once a habit is formed, its impact on behavior will last for a long time. Therefore, this study applies habits as a mooring moderating variable and explores whether it has