Abstract: As a rising industry, tourism plays an irreplaceable role in stimulating economic development, cultural communication and preservation of peace. Since China and Japan are neighboring countries, the communication between China and Japan is getting more frequent and the tourism ties are getting closer. An urgent practical issue that needs to be settled is how to promote the communication between the two countries so as to speed up the development in a positive way. Based on the questionnaire, a comparison on the similarities and differences of tourism consciousness of university students in China and Japan is made so as to find out the factors that affect travel motivations and further to put forward some effective ways of promoting tourism development

Key words: tourism consciousness, travel motivation, college students in China and Japan, status survey and analysis