Hawaii Accounted for More than 60% of the Overseas Wedding Location and Expense Spent Averaged 1.85 Million Yen

According to the “Wedding at Overseas Survey 2014” conducted by a Japanese wedding information magazine “ZEXY” published by Recruit Marketing Partners Co., Ltd., the most popular overseas location for wedding in 2013 was Hawaii (63.7%.) With a considerable growth of 10.7 points from the previous year, Hawaii accounted for more than 60% of the overseas wedding for the first time since the research began in 2008. Other areas including the 2nd popular Guam (17.9%) and the 3rd popular Europe had downscaled.

Factors for selecting locations for wedding were: 1st “not only the wedding but also the stay itself can be enjoyable” (69.2%), 2nd “there were good church and/or wedding reception hall” (43.4%), 3rd “had longing for having wedding in the specific country/area” (39.1%.) Those factors apply to those who held wedding in Hawaii, however the top 3 factors differ slightly from other areas: 1st “had longing for having wedding in the specific country/area” (49.5%./28.6 points more than other areas), 2nd “not only the wedding but also the stay itself can be enjoyable” (77.6%./23.2 points more than other areas), 3rd “to accommodate parents” (36.3%/18.4 points more than other areas.) The latter choice shows that more people wish to be filial to their parents by traveling overseas with them for wedding.

From the “Wedding at Overseas Survey 2014” by ZEXY

Among the reasons for having wedding overseas, the answers considerably exceeding those from the 2011 survey were: 1st “to have wedding and honeymoon at the same time” (9.4 points more) and 2nd “to accommodate parents” (8.0 points more.) More customers seem to select overseas wedding having additional significance.

Total cost spent for having wedding at overseas (travel, wedding ceremony and party/banquet) was 1.737 million yen, an increase of 0.126 million yen from last year, and it was most expensive since the survey started. More travelers spent between 1 million to 1.25million yen (17.9%) and the number of the travelers in this price range increased compared with last year. On the other hand, those who spent more than 2 million yen summed up to 32.4% which is 8.9 point more than last year. Those who went to Hawaii spent average of 1.849 million yen. Among them the most spent 1 million to 1.25million yen (16.2%), then followed by more than 2.5 million yen (15.2%) and 2 million to 2.25 million yen (14.7%), indicating the cost is going up particularly in Hawaii.

From the “Wedding at Overseas Survey 2014” by ZEXY

More than 80% of the travelers used the following services during overseas wedding travels: wedding bouquet (94.9%), hair and makeup for the ceremony (94.7%) and wedding photo tour (82.3%.) Although the number of wedding photo tours slightly decreased last year, it keeps growing since the research started. As the grading up options for overseas wedding plans, video/DVD shooting of the wedding (62.7%) and wedding photo tour (61.0%) are popular, revealing that the wedding photo tour is important merchandise for the tour option sales.

The survey was conducted during February 28 to March 24, 2014. Questioners were sent randomly to Tokyo metropolitan, Tokai and Kansai ZEXY readers who had overseas wedding in 2013 and collected 435 valid samples.

Let us hear your VOICEPlease feel free to leave any comments or opinions.