NAVITIME JAPAN Launches “Kamakura NAVITIME Travel”

TOKYO, Japan – February 21, 2017 - NAVITIME JAPAN Co. Ltd. today further expanded its “NAVITIME for Japan Travel” services, launching Kamakura NAVITIME Travel , an English-language, travel-information application for use on iOS® devices.

This latest application was developed to assist visitors going to Kamakura by providing them informative articles on recommended tourist attractions, restaurants, hotels, etc. when they visit Kamakura. The articles, created in-house by NAVITIME, provide information on 400 locations of interest to visitors, which NAVITIME researched on its own. The locations are categorized under “nature”, “culture”, “food”, “lodging” and others, and include details such as addresses, telephone numbers, opening hours, maps and other useful information about each location.

The information is in English, so Japanese who know English, of course, can avail themselves of the informative details. However, the service is ultimately designed for use by non-Japanese, English-speaking visitors to enable them to make the most of their travel time in Kamakura.

By using chatbot, one user interface (UI), this application enables users to easily search for locations by simply asking questions verbally to their iOS devices. For example, when users haven’t decided where they want to go, they can ask questions such as “I’m hungry.” and “I want to buy a local souvenir.” The application, then, answers their questions. What differentiates this application is its ability to give appropriate answers, even when both English and Japanese are used together in the same question. For example, if users ask, “I would like to go to the (English) éåå¤§ä» (Kamakura Daibutsu: Japanese)”, the application can give an appropriate response based on natural language processing technology. NAVITIME JAPAN’s CEO, Keisuke Onishi, commented, “This app’s intuitive flexibly to interpret and respond typifies the achievement of NAVITIME’s proprietary, natural-language-processing engine combined with Microsoft’s ® cloud service and AI technology.”

Users can save memos in their devices about places where they want to go and their reasons for wanting to go there, etc. Then, later, when they are in the vicinity of any of those places, the application via chatbox informs them via the push-notification function. As a result, the application has the ability to remind users while they are traveling, of the plans that they made before they started on their trips.

Over time NAVITIME will expand the areas covered by the sightseeing-information application. In addition, the Company plans to include a designated “concierge” guidance service to cover all situations and needs related to travel. NAVITIME is committed to developing the means to achieve natural communication so as to offer the utmost support to travelers right then and there when they need it, while working to expand and enhance these services even further.

NAVITIME plans to introduce this service for use on Android ® devices also at a later date.

We are very excited with the release of NAVITIME's “Kamakura NAVITIME Travel” which utilizes Microsoft Azure and Language Understanding Intelligent Service(LUIS) technology as a platform. We believe “Kamakura NAVITIME Travel” will provide new experiences to users though casual chat with AI Bots, helping them reach their destination and gather information they never know.

We look forward to further collaborating with NAVITIME Japan to provide new experiences which delivers high value to customers.