trippiece, the Japanese website that was founded in Tokyo in 2011 to introduce the idea of “social travelling” to young inbound travellers, has seen success with its English website set up in April 2014.
trippiece’s English website gaining popularity.
Since the English site’s launch, the online “social travelling” company has focused on building up its branding as the go-to community for trips and activities in Tokyo and the Kanto region. It has successfully run a total of 27 trips, with 480 users.
Most of the trips were in the summer months of July and August, with the summer festivals (e.g. Adachi Fireworks Festival) and weekend day-trips (e.g. visiting Misaki for the tuna auction) achieving the highest participation rates. Others include a quiet zen meditation session at a local temple, weekend day-trips to Kanto destinations and even a ten-day self-drive trip in Hokkaido.
Online, the trippiece community on the English website has grown to over1,300 registered users. Although 70% of the users are from Japan, the online community has also gathered users from countries in the region, such as Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand.
According to trippiece, participation rates are starting to pick up again with the coming autumn season and related activities. However, events to visit attractions such as the aquarium or themed museum are not as popular.
Unlike its Japanese website where content is user-generated, the trips on the English website are, for the time being, limited to those suggested by the trippiece team or Japanese users who have the local’s knowledge and ideas about Japan destinations.
Ian Ishida: Wants to give visitors a unique travel experience in Japan.
Ian Ishida, founder and CEO of trippiece, said, “One of the problems with the Japan tourism industry is that information is only available in Japanese. As a result, visitors often focus on the main cities such as Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto, missing out on the real gem in the rural areas. We hope to introduce and explore this hidden side of Japan with like-minded users, giving them a unique travel experience in Japan. This is our added advantage.”
For now, one of the main challenges the company faces is having users understand and accept the idea of “social travelling”. In order to introduce the concept of “social travelling” to more young travellers, trippiece is stepping up its offline marketing campaigns. It hopes to strengthen its community of users and address users’ concerns about travelling with strangers.
In June 2014, trippiece also launched another website, retrip.jp, a content curator site for travel-related news and information.
In the last few months, the company has also had several successful tie-ups with other players in the travel industry, including national tourism organisations like Korea Tourism Organisation, and private sectors such as All Nippon Airways.
The company said it is also looking forward to collaborate with other industry players to improve Japan’s brand image and to cater to inbound travellers who wish to explore beyond the main tourist destinations
• trippiece is the winner of WIT Startup Pitch in 2012. Its CEO and co-founder, Ian Ishida, will be speaking at this year’s WIT Bootcamp at Hotel Jen Singapore on 27 October.
• Featured image (Japanese temple) credit: holgs/iStock
