Inbound Japan — April 2019 Roundup
Each month, I’ll be offering a roundup of news and development updates from Japan Travel, as well as insights into some of the work we do.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
How we did in April
Japan Travel Bike switches up a gear
Our Docomo-supported bike pass service, Japan Travel Bike, goes from strength-to-strength, expanding to new city locations including Sendai, Sapporo, Yokohama and Hiroshima.
We believe cycling is one of the better ways to explore Japan’s cities and look forward to the warmer months ahead. Read all about it in our press release (JP).
NHK J-Trip
In something of a departure from regular day-to-day activities at Japan Travel Towers, I joined location and studio shoots for an NHK World series promoting Japanese culture.
Taking the reins as a Museum Expert on J-Trip Plan (NHK World), I helped introduce some top museum locations around Tokyo.
These include TeNQ, Meiji University Museum and the Sumida Hokusai Museum– which you can all read about on Japan Travel too. It was first broadcast on May 6th, but can be caught on-demand via the link below.
Kyoto and back
Working in Media, we balance the call for press coverage with strategising what content is most in demand, as well as monitoring what our community is getting up to.
April took me to Kyoto to tackle a few back-to-back requests.
It’s always a rewarding opportunity to talk to prospective clients or those working in tourism to listen to their experiences and see how we can help.
What’s more — getting out into the thick of it, by interacting with tourists and learning their first-hand experiences is essential for keeping on top of our game,
Hats in Asakusa
And now for something a little different — we’ve been working with a new Asakusa-based client, on a project which goes well to highlight the diversity of both the work we do at Japan Travel.
Working in a start-up environment, I—quite literally—get to wear many hats, although hopefully when it comes to modeling them, this will be the one and only occasion.
Inbound News in April
Opening of Muji Hotel Ginza
Muji opened its first Japan-based hotel property in central Ginza on April 4th.
It occupies the same building as its relocated flagship store from nearby Yurakucho.
The Ginza hotel is likely being seen as something of a testbed for potential future expansion of their hotel business (they already operate two venues in China). With an interior business and overseas brand already established, they may have the right product/market fit despite entering a competitive space. Writeup coming soon.
Tokyo 2020 Tickets — Ballet Announcement
The official site was launched for Tokyo 2020 ticket sales, with the first ballet—aimed at Japan residents—opened on May 9th and scheduled to run until 28th. Those living outside Japan should keep a look out for promotions run by Authorised Ticket Resellers in their country — who will start officially selling from June 2019. More >
Other inbound travel news
- Japan antitrust watchdog probes Expedia and Rakuten >
- JTB and Grooves sign agreement to promote recruitment of highly skilled foreign workers into the tourism industry >
- JTA (観光庁) is opening up API access to disaster information used in its Safety Tips app to improve dissemination of vital news >
- Osaka Tourism Bureau released their 2018 tourism data — 3% rise >
April Highlights from Japan Travel
We are forging ahead with better guidance content, recognising the need for long-form, comprehensive articles tailored to user needs and how they search for content.
In tandem this we have been focusing on structure and article pacing — making articles read well for the web, but also adhere to more standardised, familiar structures that can strengthen trust.
You can see some examples of this below:
Mobile is a big focus, so it is vital to make pages as easy to read as possible, write for user needs and also go the extra mile to solve the user’s query — and then the next one.
This also involves recognising what influences mobile behaviour (pagespeed, navigation), and being brutally honest about where we can improve.
We’re also increasing the range of embeddable media, improving the relevancy of internal links, and testing new ways to present content itself.
Development log
April saw us focus on a number of different optimisations, not least with a number of accessibility and UX changes:
- Improved tab-indexing support for keyboard users
- Improved zoom support on mobile devices
- New mobile navigation on guide content
We’re otherwise hard at work on some big new features and services, the fruition of which will become clearer in future updates.
How we work
Data metrics are at the core of how we make decisions, with many of our changes measured, A-B tested and validated before wider release. I’ll introduce more about this in depth, as well as other insights into how we work, in future updates.
That’s all for now
I’m intrigued to learn more about what kind of readers follow our activities and invite enquiries from some of our readers, questions you may have and any feedback on how you think we’re doing. Feel free to leave a comment or follow my adventures on our site.
