Countries across the world are bracing their economies for enthusiastic tourists & adventurers and Japan is not falling behind in the race. According to a source, Japan had 13 million tourists visiting the country last year, marginally more than Singapore. The ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ is home to 26 World Heritage Sites with popular destinations like Tokyo, Nara, Mount Fuji etc. Observing the potential growth of Travel & Tourism industry in Japan, many new travel startups have come into existence of late.

Japan, as a tourist destination, has a lot to offer you!

At TravHQ, we have compiled a list of some of the newest and coolest travel startups of Japan that are making a mark in the Travel & Tourism industry. If you are an avid traveller, these startups might just prove useful to you when you head to Japan next. Keep reading 😉

#1 Odigo

Cofounded by Takamasa Kawasaki and Julien Bourdon, Odigo is a trip-planning startup launched in February, 2015. Headquartered in Tokyo, we had a chance to catchup with them at the RISE summit in HK. If you plan to explore Japan and you are relatively new to the country, Odigo can be a reliable source. It has a group of knowledgeable locals who will guide you as to what, when and how to visit your planned tourist destinations. You can create personalized trips and itineraries with complete insights and important information about the places you expect to visit. If you like what Odigo offers and plan to travel to Japan soon, do check out its website here to avail the best fares.

Language: JP/EN

#2 Tadaku

Launched in October 2014, Tadaku was founded by Tao Romera Martinez and Trent McBride. It offers cooking sessions at local’s homes. Through its website you can visit households, cook food with the owners and enjoy the taste of local cuisines at the comfort of a home. The founders believe that this collective activity will help create a warmer atmosphere and bring people together socially. To involve yourself in this part of the travel experience, visit their website.

Language: EN/JP

#3 Trippiece

Trippiece, founded by Ian Ishida, started as a Japanese website in 2011. It’s a social platform for tourists who plan to travel to Japan with like-minded people. If you’re a travel junkie, you can form groups on the website and head to your favourite destinations with only those people make you feel at ease. This is what makes Trippiece extraordinary! Till May last year it had more than 110,000 registered users and 20,000 monthly active users on the platform. About its funding, according to the report, it obtained US$2 million investment from Draper Nexus Venture Partners and other investors sometime back.

Language: JP

#4 AirTalk

According to the TravHQ report earlier, AirTalk, a Tokyo based app, lets you connect with strangers who are near you! What sets it apart from other apps is that it does not require mobile internet for sending messages. The stranger just needs to be 100 metres away from your location. That’s it! Would you like to give it a shot?

Language: EN/JP

#5 Asoview

Founded by Tomohisa Yamano, Asoview, a leisure booking website, was incorporated in 2011.It offers you multiple activities like skydiving, rafting and other weekend leisure activities through it. Over the years, the firm has raised funds from multiple organizations. It has associated itself with a Japanese travel agent company ‘JTB Group’ and obtained $5 million with this partnership. It has even partnered with Yahoo Travel. If you are an adventure freak, do book some awesome activities from the website here.

Language: JP

#6 Locaruu

Locaruu, founded by Yuna Kim last year, is an online platform where travellers can meet with the natives and indulge in exciting hobby-related activities like drawing, climbing, cooking, playing guitar, yoga, sewing etc. The ‘local stars’ can be professionals or otherwise. The biggest advantage of involving yourself in such activity is that you get to mingle with the residents, learn about their culture & lifestyle while nearly mastering a skill.

Language: EN

#7 Lifull TraveRing

Headquartered in Tokyo, the startup was founded by Yuko Akiyama in 2014. It’s a service that provides travellers with innumerable programs and events, thereby helping them to mix with the locals of Japan and get a sense of their culture. The website clearly mentions that the assigned local hosts are strictly verified by their team for the safety of travellers.  Through this platform, the startup intends to leave the travelers amazed with their hospitable services.

Language: EN/JP

#8 Relux Hotels – Members Only

A hotel reservation startup founded by Takaya Shinozuka, Relux started its website in 2013. To book a hotel through it, you will have to become a member of the brand. The online platform lists traditional Japanese Inns and world-class hotels that are known for its architectural designs and comfort. Since most of the hotels and inns are top-rated by nature, they are priced accordingly. If you think you can’t afford them, don’t worry. It has a list of a few hotels that will fall well within your budget. Do visit its website if you want to make your Japan travel truly authentic.

Language: EN/JP

#9 JapanTravel.com

Established in November 2013 by Terrie Lloyd, JapanTravel.com is the fastest growing and the largest tourist guide for Japan. It offers its users tourism information, tourism resources, maps and relevant tools to make your travel a perfect one. With the help of this website, you can choose to book tours, hotels, rental cars and long-term stay lodges. You can explore Activities. Transport, Accomodation, Food & Drink etc. The list goes on! Just visit the website as it might be the best resource available online for your Japan travel.

Language: English, Japanese, French, Portuguese etc.

#10 Voyagin

Voyagin, a travel startup headquartered in Tokyo, assists you to discover and experience Japan & other Asiatic countries in absolute traditional and authentic ways. Its website not only lists tours, activities and restaurants but also has a section of community reviews to help you decide the best places for your travel. You can create your own itirnerary through it. According to a report, Rakuten, Japan’s largest e-commerce site, acquired this company in this July.

For your next travel, we advise you to try out the services of these startups. Who knows your travel might turn out to special and memorable! 😉

The post Travel Sprint: Our Pick of Japan’s 10 Coolest Travel Startups appeared first on TravHQ.

When was the last time you walked up to a random stranger at the airport waiting area and struck a new conversation? Or perhaps during that bus journey or with someone during your last flight? Most of the times we are so occupied with our mobile devices that we hardly acknowledge the world around us. Even if we feel like talking to a stranger and striking a conversation, we are unsure whether the other person would reciprocate.

Even in flights, we spend time tinkering with our smartphones in flight mode. During our recent visit to HongKong for the RISE conference, we came across two startups that are trying to enable conversations via their chatting apps specifically designed for such situations. These apps won’t take your device away from you but will help you socialise with strangers nearby. Neither of the apps require a data connection so when you are disconnected from the social media feed and messaging apps, you can try to discover interesting people near you.

AirTalk

‘Social Networks are built around friends, AirTalk around strangers’ is what their promo-flyer says.

Airtalk is an app by Tokyo based OFF Line Corporation that would let you talk to strangers when you happen to be near them. This is an exciting proposition which adds a new dimension to the whole concept of proximity based chatting apps. You don’t have to look up for people or add friends to your network to have a conversation. If there are people around you using AirTalk, simply leave a message and maybe you will be able to start a conversation around some interesting topic. The messages are backed-up on cloud and the profile builder offers the option of integrating with Twitter account which allows the messages to be shared with twitter followers as well.

With AirTalk you can communicate with people within 100m radius without an active internet or data connection – If they do have an iOS device. You can record users who pass each other in a 3km radius and search for other users as well as their posts. The app has a very slick interface and has an intuitive design which makes the overall user experience a great one. Having said that, currently there is little or no awareness of the app in South-East Asia including India and its major user-base seems to be from Japan.

We believe that with some refinements, the app has a great potential for travellers in countries such as India where internet penetration and consistency of data connection continue to be a challenge. Imagine, going to the rain-forests in Coorg for a hike or probably going to areas where there is no 3G connectivity at all. An app like AirTalk can help you to stay connected with your fellow hikers and exchange messages even if there’s no cellular or a data connection.

FlightChat

Another startup that offers an app for connecting with people during flights or at the airportis FlightChat. Designed by Giinger Pte Ltd. in Singapore, FlightChat enables you to trigger chat with people who are on the same app and stay anonymous at the sametime.

FlightChat’s single line description says “Bored while travelling? FLIGHTMODE ON? CHAT ON A PLANE FOR FREE !”

Unlike AirTalk, FlightChat is available to download for Android as well as iOS platform. To start a conversation, you can join an existing group or start a new one. You can create your avatar and during a private chat, you can choose to reveal your identity. User discovery is not just limited to your flight when you are offline but you can discover new users before reaching the airport using an internet connection. To add more fun, they have added some mini games that you can play with other travellers while waiting to board your flight. To make sure that you can stay connected with your new friends after the flight as well, the app synchronises the chats once you are back on-ground.

Our take

Both these apps use connectivity options like Wi-FI or Bluetooth PAN to connect with other app users. While the idea is interesting, such apps require a strong community outreach program to gain initial traction and adoption beyond their countries of origin. For such apps, the growth rate usually goes up as more users join for obvious reasons. They need to target wide geographical areas and make it relevant to travellers.

We don’t see the app being downloaded by users who don’t fly or travel frequently. To make sure they have the app(s) when they do travel, the developers might have to explore the option of adding other features that are relevant to such people. FireChat is a similar app when it comes to basic functionality but they are trying to target a different segment of users with a very different marketing message.

These apps are very fresh in the market at the moment and will take a while to build up momentum. We might see them adding more innovative features to lure more users. We would love to hear more use-cases of such apps from you in comments below.

You can find more updates from RISE here.

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