HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON, accommodations located within the VISON commercial complex in Taki, Mie Prefecture, provide information in Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Vietnamese on their website to better serve the growing number of international visitors, especially those from Asia. For these languages, we have implemented the Cistate Translation Proxy, an automated website translation solution, to manage the multilingual content automatically. In this article, we discuss the background leading up to the implementation, as well as our firsthand experience and the results we've seen.
VISON Hotel Management Co., Ltd.
Marketing Department: Mr. Nagai, Mr. Sato, Ms. Murasawa
Mr. Kato, Accommodation Department
H.I.S. Hotel Holdings Co., Ltd.
Web Planning & Sales Section
System Support Section
Mr. Yagi (interviewed on a different day)
To start, could you please introduce HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON, and tell us about your day-to-day work?
Mr. Nagai: HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON are accommodations located within VISON, Japan's largest commercial complex, in Taki, Mie Prefecture. Inspired by the concept of “Learn and Play in Nature,” we create spaces that embrace and highlight the beauty of the natural environment within our facilities. We offer two types of accommodations: HOTEL VISON, which consists of villa and hotel buildings, and HATAGO VISON, which features 40 rooms across four buildings, each uniquely designed by a different creator. Another highlight is our convenient access to nearby tourist attractions.
I am the head of the Marketing Department, responsible for planning, promoting, and selling our products and services. Multilingual websites are directly connected to our business when it comes to sales. Manager Sato and Lead Murazawa work on the same team, handling plan development, sales, and web-related projects. Kato is the general manager in charge of the accommodations department.
There has been a lot of news about the increase in foreign tourists after COVID-19. Have you noticed any changes yourself?
Mr. Nagai: While inbound tourism is increasing slightly, it still feels like Mie Prefecture has a long way to go before fully recovering in terms of inbound visitors. Currently, only a few percent of guests at HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON are international tourists. Among our international guests, most are from other Asian countries, with group travelers from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan leading the recovery in tourism.
What initiatives have you implemented for international travelers?
Mr. Nagai: During the COVID-19 pandemic, we focused on domestic customers, but after the pandemic, we have been expanding our sales channels and service plans for overseas markets. This includes enhancing sales websites for international customers and strengthening sales through online travel agencies.
Have you ever considered implementing multilingual support before?
Mr. Nagai: Until now, we only supported English, and we were just starting to consider multilingual support before introducing the translation proxy. We had always wanted to expand our site beyond just English pages, so being able to introduce languages other than English through the translation proxy was very significant for us.
Regarding the automatic website translation used at HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON, what were your initial impressions and expectations?
Mr. Nagai: We have long recognized challenges with multilingual support, and as a company, we have been considering implementing it as one of our strategies to better serve inbound customers. We would like to collaborate effectively with external sales platforms to attract overseas customers, but transaction fees are a concern. From the beginning, we hoped to increase the number and proportion of international customers visiting us through our own website.
Mr. Yagi: While we were considering implementation across several brands, we received feedback expressing interest in using it at HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON to attract inbound guests, which led us to move forward with the introduction.
Was there a key factor that led to your decision to implement our solution?
Yagi: While it wasn't necessarily the deciding factor for implementation, what stood out to me first was how quickly we were able to get started. We were able to launch the site in just under two weeks from placing the order. Of course, it depends on the size and structure of the site, but this is a speed you wouldn't expect from a typical web development process.
We were once again impressed by how little maintenance is required after launching the system. I knew the updates would happen automatically, but having the multilingual pages update whenever the original site is updated saves us a lot of maintenance work. It's incredibly helpful.
Have you noticed any changes, such as an increase in inquiries or bookings from international tourists, after implementing our solution?
Mr. Nagai: Being able to support Chinese is a major advantage for us in the tourism industry. We truly appreciate the opportunity to reach customers in Mainland China, other Chinese-speaking regions, and places like Singapore. We are receiving more inquiries from overseas, which may be due to the recovery of inbound travel and various other factors. We believe that by implementing a combination of various strategies, including making our website multilingual, we have seen an increase in inquiries.
Mr. Kato: While we've received more inquiries from customers, the number of questions has actually decreased. We believe this is because the information on our website has already answered many of your questions. In fact, there are people overseas who are introducing VISON, and they are using the multilingual version of our website to explain what VISON is. It's convenient for both of us if you can find the answers you need right here on our website, instead of having to contact us directly.
What are your expectations and requests for automatic website translation?
Mr. Nagai: Being able to track the number of accesses by language and the number of users redirected to the reservation site within the translation proxy system would be extremely valuable for future analysis and sales strategies. It would also be helpful if we could easily and precisely swap out photos and content for each language.
Thank you very much for today. Finally, could you once again share what makes HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON so appealing to guests from both Japan and abroad?
Mr. Nagai: We are fortunate to be located at a midpoint along what was once called the 'Golden Route,' which runs from Nagoya through Mie to Wakayama. Our location offers excellent access to popular tourist destinations such as Ise Grand Shrine, Toba, Matsusaka City—famous for Matsusaka beef—and the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route.
There are about 70 shops within the VISON area, and the restaurants feature cuisine crafted by some of Japan's top chefs, while the patisseries offer an array of enticing menu items. We are confident that even customers with discerning tastes will be satisfied, whether it's a select shop curated by renowned designers or rooms created in collaboration with designers. We focus on providing relaxation, so we believe you will be able to fully enjoy your time when you visit VISON.
HOTEL VISON and HATAGO VISON https://vison-hotels.com/
Web: https://vison-hotels.com/
E-mail: info-vison@visonhm.com
TEL: 0598-39-3090 Business hours: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
All you need is a URL. Cistate Translation Proxy: Easy Implementation with Minimal Effort
Cistate Translation Proxy is a system that directly retrieves information from publicly available websites and automatically builds and manages multilingual sites. By combining large language models with our proprietary natural language processing technology, we achieve highly accurate automatic multilingualization of websites. For more details about Cistate Translation Proxy, please also see this page.
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