When Keisuke Onishi incorporated NAVITIME JAPAN in 2000 there weren’t many alternatives to carrying around a physical city map to orientate oneself to an unfamiliar place. What started as a venture with 5 employees turned into one of Japan’s most innovative companies – providing unique services to travellers and businesses alike. ‘NAVITIME JAPAN started off from the motivation to create the world’s first “multimodal total navigation system,’ showing its users the fastest and most practical route options for different means of transportation including walking,’ explains Dr. Onishi, who has been researching navigation systems since 1986 and obtained his PhD in Engineering with the thesis ‘Path-finding Algorithm for Road Navigation Systems.’ ‘We are committed to provide user-friendly navigation services by utilising the latest technologies and maintaining finely tuned and detailed data.’

With the rise of the internet and the proliferation of smartphones, NAVITIME JAPAN matured into a company with more than 500 employees and a broad product and service portfolio. The company today has a customer base exceeding 39 million users, indeed, in Japan one out of three people has used one of NAVITIME JAPAN’s more than 10 applications already. ‘Besides the additional special functions,NAVITIME JAPAN’s superiority over similar products in the market is simply based on the adequacy and abundance of our services’ data.’ This competitive advantage builds on both NAVITIME JAPAN’s long experience and its unique technology, and on the company’s practical and powerful modus operandi: ‘The route options provided in our services are tested by our employees - who go out there and measure the time and distances themselves to be sure that the information given is as precise as possible. We can proudly say that our flagship service “NAVITIME” is Japan’s most precise and most detailed navigation app today.’ Anyone who knows Tokyo’s metro system, notably the world’s busiest, knows that adequate information makes a crucial difference. NAVITIME not only gives its users information on which train to use, it also specifiess which wagon to use to reduce travelling time to a minimum – an idea which is already reflected in the company’s name, ‘NAVITIME stands for navigation and time,’ states Dr. Onishi. The information provided by NAVITIME is so detailed that users can customise their journey according to their needs and use options such as ‘avoid stairs’ or ‘prioritise covered walkways’ on a rainy day for instance.

NAVITIME JAPAN’s newest endeavors are in the travel business: providing destination information through online travel books; developing an online itinerary planner with navigation features; and providing booking services for hotels and air. Booking service are currently available for Japanese consumers only, but the other features are available in Chines(Traditional and Simplified), English, Japanese, and Korean for PC and Smartphone applications. By using chatbot one user interface (UI), that allows its user to verbally communicate with the app: ‘even to basic requests such as “I am hungry!” the application responds with a detailed overview of the restaurants in the neighborhood giving useful background information about their offers.’

For years the numbers of inbound foreign visitor numbers were on a comparably low level with Japan being seen more as a business destination and with language and cultural barriers seen as difficult to overcome. Today, however, Japan is experiencing a tourism boom and is an incredibly popular tourist destination for international travellers. With the Olympics and Paralympics ahead and with the touristic options developing and broadening, visitors from all over the world are flocking to Japan in ever-higher numbers. German tourists are increasingly interested in Japan as a destination and, with German tourists to Japan increasing by 21% in 2016 alone, Germany represents one of the fastest growing tourism source markets for Japan. Typically, German tourists are shown as being interested in cultural and natural attractions and also for trips that take them ‘off the beaten path’ beyond the classic Golden Route of Tokyo and Kyoto. Especially for those trips outside of the well-trodden touristic paths, navigation and planning can be challenging.

‘Foreign tourists to Japan, this is a segment we are clearly focusing on’ explains Dr. Onishi. While more than 12.5% of foreign visitors to Japan are already using NAVITIME’s applications, Dr. Onishi has a clear objective: ‘We want to be the preferred travel app for foreign visitors to Japa.’ For that purpose, NAVITIME JAPANlaunched ‘NAVITIME for Japan Travel’, a free-of-charge application tailored for the particular needs of foreign visitors to Japan. The multi-lingual application bundles tourism-specific data and provides detailed descriptions of over 4 million points of interest. The application also makes it easy for tourists to find one of 200,000 free wifi-spots, international ATMs and currency exchange offices. The application also includes guides and informative articles about travelling in Japan written by foreign authors residing in the country. ‘My advice to any foreign visitor who plans a trip to our beautiful and diverse country: download “NAVITIME for Japan Travel” before you enter the plane and you’ll be in safe hands; we will provide you with highly precise route suggestions as well as up-to-date information about locations and activities – even when you are offline,’ emphasises Dr. Onishi.

Beyond tourism and navigation, NAVITME JAPAN has pursued diversified business streams. ‘Navigation services for consumers is only one part of our business; another major topic we are busy with is the analysis of big data of how people move within Japan. We analyse data from car navigation applications, inbound tourism GPS data, as well as from route search settings to come up with highly sophisticated intelligence that helps our partners to steadily improve the flow of traffic and people in Japan. For instance, the National Police uses our data to help regulate traffic lights to minimise the risk of congestion. We also work closely with the Japan National Tourist Organization(JNTO), by providing detailed inbound tourist data for their marketing campains; working together on R&D; and developing their official smartphone application for tourists to Japan.’

NAVITIME JAPAN also provides solutions that help companies to efficiently coordinate employee travel as well as manage their fleet of vehicles. Beyond that, the company is also working together with leading German car manufacturers to further perfect and enhance their inbuilt-navigation systems for Japan. ‘On the road towards “self-driving cars” top-notch navigation systems have become a crucial success factor for car companies – with our technology and experience NAVITIME JAPAN presents itself as a strong partner in this regard.’

Looking ahead, Dr. Onishi has ambitious plans for the company. ‘We are continuously upgrading and adding elements to our services, and we are also looking to expand for example our “Travel – World Navigation App” to more countries. This step would also give us the ability to expand our big data analysis business internationally – and present ourselves as an even more attractive partner for individual travellers and businesses.’