Enterprise Innovation – January 20, 2016 – Inbound visitors to Japan have increased nearly six-fold over the past four years. A large number of these enter through Tokyo, and the Japanese government has taken definite steps as a part of its greater vision to serve tourists from all over the world.
Visitors to Tokyo make up 25% of all foreign tourists to Japan, and according to a survey conducted by the government, the top complaint of these visitors is the lack of multi-language support service in giving routing advice or information.
To address this, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has initiated a number of services, one of which is an audio guide for tourists at the Tokyo Waterfront City. The newly-developed Tokyo Waterfront City – also known as Odaiba – has a number of densely-concentrated attractions spread out over an open, walk-able expanse, making it ideal for the pilot of such a project.
Enterprise Innovation talks to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and its technology partners Fuji Xerox and Jorudan on this initiative and others.
Omotenashi
“This whole area, the waterfront area, has only a 20-year history. It’s a new city, and I am in charge of further developing this waterfront area,” says Kentarou Okabe, Assistant Manager within the Maintenance & Development Section’s Maintenance Subsection of the Bureau of Port & Harbor’s Waterfront Development Division. This Division falls under the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG).
Okabe explains that in order to make this an area that will extend hospitality or (“omotenashi” in Japanese) to overseas tourists, TMG is working with private-sector companies. TMG has a subsidy scheme through which it provides support for private companies to service to visitors to Japan in innovative ways.
“That is exactly the program under which this multi-language support service is given—for the enjoyment of the visitors we have many things, including the Illuminated Town, and the Animation or Japanese Anime-related facilities,” Okabe reports.
“Let me explain the rationale behind the service,” says Atsushi Sawayama, Department Manager at the Communication Design Office within Fuji Xerox’s Research & Technology Group. “Fuji Xerox has been espousing this concept of ubiquitous computing for more than 20 years now — that is the background against which we have been conducting research work [in this area]. The goal is to provide an enjoyable experience for the visitors to Japan, but they don’t have to be aware so much of the services that they are given — it should be transparent.”
He suggests that Japan, in comparison to other countries, has some catching-up to do in terms of tour guidance services, and this new communication guidance service goes some distance in rectifying this oversight.
“We developed first of all a multi-language voice guide service,” Okabe continues, “which is the transit guidance system for passengers changing from one train line to another train line, and also they can print out maps. We’re also providing map printout service for specific areas of interest — say, you want to go to Shibuya area, you can print out its map in multiple languages.”
Multi-Language Audio
The multi-language audio device is an earphone-equipped small hardware device housing a SIM card. The device provides a running commentary about the history, background, and special qualities of any attraction the visitor may be looking at at any given point. The context is gleaned from the GPS coordinates, which enables the device determine exactly where the user is standing.
The languages supported in the multi-language guide service are English, Chinese (both traditional and simplified), and Korean, in addition to Japanese. With these four languages, 80% of the visitors’ native tongues are covered. If there is a request for a text message in addition to audio, it shows text information as well, for the hearing impaired.
A Wide-Ranging Partnership
In order to implement the service, it was necessary for TMG and Fuji Xerox to partner with Jorudan, the company that provides train and bus transit information and guidance throughout the whole of Japan.
“We are the number one transit planning search service in Japan, with about 200 million searches per month on all sorts of devices,” says Masanori Yukawa, General Manager within the Corporation Sales Division at Jorudan. “The train network in Tokyo is complicated that it’s very difficult for foreigners to figure out how to get to a certain place.”
Until March 2015, Jorudan only provided this routing/planning service in the Japanese language, but starting with March this year, together with Fuji Xerox, it also started the multi-language service providing Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean service to help people navigate the network. Included under its navigational purview are also hotels and tourist spots.
“For example, if you want to search for a hotel or a main station or a tourist spot—let’s say you choose Shinjuku Alta which is a facility/building name, you can click on it for the device to show you some recommended routes, as it knows where you are currently,” Yukawa elaborates. “There are multiple ones to choose from, depending on easier access or faster total transit time or lowest price—you can choose priorities. Different recommended routes will pop up and you know exactly how to get from the station to the destination.”
Already in place as a collaboration between Jorudan and Fuji Xerox is the ‘Tokyo International Air Terminal Route Master Service’ at Haneda Airport. It is an ongoing service within the website of Haneda airport that makes it simple to navigate to any hotel in a specific area within Tokyo. Jorudan worked with Haneda Airport authorities to provide this service to help visitors landing in Haneda aiming to go to a particular location or hotel. “They can get this information as to which route to take, and know at exactly what time they are supposed to arrive at the destination,” says Yukawa.
The service also caters to the needs of wheelchair users in anticipation of the Olympics and the Paralympics in 2020. As the audio guide narrates the points of interest around tourist spots, red dots light up on the map, representing the locations of prominence where GPS-based information will be given. “We want to have larger coverage, and we want them to come back, so we’re thinking of sending them a thank you letter when they go back,” suggests Sawayama.
The Tourist’s Footsteps
As of now, devices are leased to tourists at hotels and tourist information counters, as well as to participants of bus tours. And though partially implemented, there is also a downloadable application called ‘Skydesk Media Track’ onto smartphones. Eventually, when the number of visitors increase beyond a certain threshold, it is reckoned that downloading the app will prove to be more practical than leasing the hardware to all visitors.
TMG’s Okabe is realistic about the role of the government in the long run: “The purpose of the is not to develop the system per se with the subsidy; rather, the focus for us is more for making an environment that is more receptive and welcoming to the visitors to Japan. Because there’s a limit as to how much the government—whether it’s at the national or metropolitan level—can do. Our intent is to really leverage the technology and the knowhow of the very fine Japanese corporations that have supported us.
The Jorudan Business Model
Jorudan started with the transit routing guidance service working with Japan Railways, which is the terrestrial line; the Tokyo Metro, which is the subway network; as well as various bus companies. The system in place conveys information about the schedule, the timetable of the trains and the buses, and the fares.
“We’ve developed a trust-based relationship with the public transportation companies over the past 15 years,” reports Yukawa. “We developed this multi-language route guidance system, which we customised to fit the needs of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, with the design that they wanted to have. For Haneda Airport, the technology used behind the scenes is the same, but again we customised the design. We can maintain control in terms of management, but still meet the needs of the customers/different entities.”
Yukawa reveals that the wish and intent is to really expand this model: ”Right now we work with the Haneda airport and the Tokyo metropolitan government—but who knows in the future we might do the same with Narita airport or Kansai airport or other local governments in Japan. Again, in such a case, we’ll still have the same technology but it will be applied horizontally in different application areas.”
The way services from Jorudan are provided can be twofold: one would be to use the Jorudan cloud server, the other is for the different local governments to use their own Intranet and servers.
Ultimately, Jorudan provides the service and has a licensing agreement with specific companies or entities for service use. “For instance, we get information from JR about their train services, but we pay them in this licensing agreement with Jorudan,” explains Yukawa.
Beyond Tokyo
Fuji Xerox’s Sawayama reveals that the audio guide system is also being tested across 95 spots in Singapore. “We could make this into a full-fledged service, but that has not yet happened,” he says. “And if Jorudan chooses to be part of that effort—for instance they could perhaps provide transit information in Singapore—maybe there’s a chance we’d work together, but we don’t know [yet].
Plans are in place to provide guidance information to visitors in Kyoto and other world heritage sites within Japan. Says Sawayama: “For the guidance-related information or data in the cloud, we have Fuji Xerox servers in which we have all the data from the different local governments throughout Japan. For example, there’s a city called Chigasaki in Kanagawa prefecture next to Tokyo, and there’s a mechanism in which we can develop content in the cloud together with the representatives of the city government of Chigasaki City as well as non-profits and others in the area.”