Development of Multiple Sightseeing Spots Scheduling System and Comparison with The Existing Sightseeing Methods

Transcription

1 230 Int'l Conf. Software Eng. Research and Practice SERP'16 Development of Multiple Sightseeing Spots Scheduling System and Comparison with The Existing Sightseeing Methods Kazuya Murata 1, Takayuki Fujimoto 1 1 Graduate School of Engineering, Toyo University, Saitama, Japan Abstract - Recently, foreign tourists and travelers coming to Japan is increasing explosively. In 2004, the number of the foreign visitors was approximately 6.1 million people, and it became approximately 20 million people in One of the backgrounds includes various Japanese sightseeing policies such as Visit Japan Project and Cool Japan. As a result, Japan s travel and tourism competitiveness of 2015 was the ninth place, a high rank in the world. However, a problem is still left in the current Japanese sightseeing situation. For example, there are not so many stores with foreign language correspondence. And also there are not so many places where they can pay with a credit card. Furthermore, the traffic such as the subway or the buses is complicated. In current Japan, those kinds of problems are left. But, it is difficult for foreign tourists and travelers to accept them without stress. We saw if there was any way to solve the problems and uneasiness. In this research, we have developed totally a new form of sightseeing application Multiple sightseeing spots scheduling system as a solution for these problems and uneasiness. In this paper, we developed the application prototype, and performed the comparison experiment with the existing sightseeing methods and verified superiority of this application. Keywords: Sightseeing, Tourist, Application, Sightseeing Information 1 Introduction T Recently, foreign tourists and travelers coming to Japan is increasing explosively. In 2004, the number of the foreign visitors was approximately 6.1 million people, and it became approximately 20 million people in 2015, 10 years later [1]. The background includes recent Japanese sightseeing policies. For example, they are Visit Japan Project, Cool Japan Policy and Relaxation of the visa acquisition for Middle Eastern countries. Japan Tourism Agency plans Visit Japan Project and Japan National Tourism Organization performs promotes it. Visit Japan Project is one of Strategy to increase the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan. In Visit Japan Project, Japan establishes 20 important point markets abroad to attract foreign tourists. And promotion of Japan in those countries and areas are performed. This promotion includes two methods of Public appeal in overseas markets and Promotional programs for travel agents. In Public appeal in overseas markets, activities such as Transmitting charms of the Japan sightseeing by newspapers, magazines and websites, etc. and Inviting the local media to Japan and encouraging them to deliver charms of Japanese sightseeing are carried out. In Promotional programs for travel agents, an activity mixing Promotion of Japan sightseeing by Japan National Tourism Organization with The advertisement of Japan sightseeing product of the travel agency is held. Like these, Japan sightseeing is promoted by various methods. Cool Japan Policy is a policy of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Current Japan has the famous industries: the car industry; the electric appliances industry and etc. In addition, Japan has special culture including contents such as Anime, Manga, fashions and Japanese food. The foreigner appreciates them as so-called Cool Japan. These kind of Japanese unique culture can be expanded to the business deployment properly and it enables people to be interested in Japan more. At the same time, Japan can get foreign demand. Attracting foreign tourists is the activity which can be connected with economic growth of Japan. Examples are Effective transmitting of Japanese charms, Platform construction to make money locally, and Bringing bark consumption to Japan. In Effective transmitting of Japanese charm is an activity to raise interest in Japan. For Example, for the overseas development promotion of Anime and Manga, there is the localization such as subtitles and dubbing. In addition, there is the promotion activity to an international trade fair and running the advertisement. In Platform construction to make money locally, There is an activity such as the securing of the channel for exclusive use of Japanese contents and the allied product sale in commercial facilities. Through this activity, the matching support is practiced for local company and Japanese company with materials based on unique Japanese technique and culture. In 2014, it carries out eight times of trade fair exhibition and business matching were held in various countries. In Bringing bark consumption to Japan, Japanese attractions are dispatched as Cool Japan to acquire share in overseas markets. It also promotes Visit Japan Project. For example, an activity to attract foreign people to Japan is practiced by

2 Int'l Conf. Software Eng. Research and Practice SERP' spreading information on Japanese traditional craft arts abroad and also casting the tours for foreigners to experience Japanese traditional craft arts at the same time. In this way, the policies targets to deliver Japanese various contents to the foreign countries and encourage foreign people to come to Japan. In Relaxation of the visa acquisition for Middle Eastern countries, relaxation of the acquisition of the visa is carried out for Middle Eastern countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and China. By these sightseeing policies, the current Japanese sightseeing competitiveness becomes the high rank of the ninth in the world [2]. In 2020, Tokyo Olympics will be held. From these, the sudden increase in number of foreign tourists and travelers are expected in the future. 2 Purpose Current Japanese travel and tourism competitiveness is a high rank of the ninth in the world. However, a problem is still left in the Japanese sightseeing situation. It is a problem with the information environment on sightseeing spots and the stores in Japan. For example, there are not so many places with the foreign language correspondence. Of course, there are a lot of stores with the foreign language correspondence, but the stores with no foreign language correspondence still exist. In addition, there are few places where the credit card payment is possible, and the credit card payment is a basic means of payment in the foreign counties. Furthermore, the traffic such as the subway or the buses in Tokyo is complicated and hard to understand. Regarding sightseeing of Japan, these problems are left. However, it is difficult for the foreign tourists and travelers who don t know much about Japan to accept those problems without stress. Of course, it is difficult for them to find the places which are other than famous sightseeing spots and stores on the guidebook. Thesedays, most of foreign tourists and travelers are interested in Japanese local spots more than Japanese famous sightseeing spots. However, it is not easy to find those places. The tourists and travelers can use websites for Japanese sightseeing information, but they are just digitized version of the guidebooks basically. To increase the number of the tourists and travelers to Japan more, visits to the places other than sightseeing spots on the guidebooks are indispensable. Therefore we thought if there was any way to solve this kind of problem by a casual tool, which is other than Japanese policies, but enables foreign tourists and travelers to come to Japan more. And we devised Multiple sightseeing spots scheduling system based on inversed operation method that enabled a guidance of new sightseeing to suggest in this research. 3 Purpose In this research, we have proposed and created the prototype of Multiple sightseeing spots scheduling system based on inversed operation method enabling guidance for new type of sightseeing. This application consists of the following five components. Settings for the current place and the place to return Settings for time to return Selection from sightseeing categories A list of sightseeing information Use or disuse of the credit card payment In this chapter these five components are described in detail. 3.1 Setting for the Current Place and the Place to Return This application requires the user to set the current place and the place to return, unlike common sightseeing applications. From the current place and the place to return, the application determines some range of the tourist route or sightseeing plan to suggest. 3.2 Setting for Time to Return The common sightseeing applications display time required to the destination on the search results. But, for the application of this research, the user needs to set time to return. Using the settings, the system suggests possible tourist route and sightseeing plan by calculating time allowance available for sightseeing from current time to time to return. 3.3 Selection from Sightseeing Categories For the common sightseeing applications, the user inputs a destination and searches routes to the destination. But for this application, the user decides a sightseeing place to go by selecting sightseeing categories without setting the destination. In this application, we set sightseeing categories such as table 1 Table 1. List of Sightseeing Categories Tourist spot Museum Cafe Japanese sweet Temples Shrines History Aquarium Japanese food Souvenir Archives Center Western food Garden Art Museum Chinese food Park Memorial Hall Traditional Craft

3 232 Int'l Conf. Software Eng. Research and Practice SERP'16 In this application, using this sightseeing categories, the system shows appropriate sightseeing spots for sightseeing categories from the area determined by calculation based on the current place, the place to return, and time to return. 3.4 List of Sightseeing Information This application displays information on the suggested sightseeing spots as well as the suggestions of the tourist route and the sightseeing plan. For this application, we made a list of sightseeing information to be viewed by the user. In that list of sightseeing information, we list information on table 2. point and a place to return into current place and place to return columns of the input form in figure 1. In the former prototype system, current place was specified only by the station. However, the current system enables guidance using GPS by the Current place input in the Present place column. Also, the users are required to input Time to return into the Time to return column. For example, in the case of a plan to return to Tokyo Station at 18:00, the user inputs 1800 in the column. From this, the application calculates time form present time to time to return by back calculation and suggests a tourist route and sightseeing plan in specified time. An example of these operations is indicated in figure 1. Table 2. List of Sightseeing Information Sightseeing Categories Store Name Address Opening Hours TEL Regular Closing Day Need Time Need Money Use or Disuse Credit Card payment The users choose sightseeing spots using sightseeing categories from this sightseeing information. By the search results of this application, the use of the system can read sightseeing information from the search results. 3.5 Use or Disuse of the Credit Card Payment One of the target of development of the application in this research aims to enable foreign tourists and travelers to do sightseeing without stress. To solve the problem, the users can choose use/disuse of Credit card payment when searching a tourist route. The system excludes the sightseeing spots and stores where the credit card payment is unavailable form the results and it can suggest a more comfortable tourist route and sightseeing plan. With these five components, first, the system calculates a range from the current place and the place to return. Second, it calculates time allowance for sightseeing by back calculation from time to return. At last, it searches appropriate sightseeing spots for the specified sightseeing categories. That is how the system suggests possible tourist route and sightseeing plan in specified time. Fig 1. Settings for Current Place, Return Place, and Time to Return 4.2 Selection from Sightseeing Categories In this application, the user sets sightseeing categories that is connected with list of sightseeing information. The system suggests appropriate sightseeing spots for sightseeing categories by this selection. Also the user can set plural sightseeing categories and can suggest a tourist route and a sightseeing plan to the multiple sightseeing spots. 4 Example of Operation Method Multiple Sightseeing Spots Scheduling System In this chapter, an operation method of Multiple sightseeing spots scheduling system is described. 4.1 Setting for the Current Place, the Place to Return, and Time to Return Fig 2. Selection from Sightseeing Categories In this application, firstly, the users input a current place and a place to return. User input a current place as a starting

4 Int'l Conf. Software Eng. Research and Practice SERP' Use or Disuse of the Credit Card Payment With this application, we aim to suggest more comfortable tourist route and sightseeing plan s for a foreign tourists and travelers. Therefore in this application, at the time of tourist route search, the user choose s use or disuse of the credit card payment. Fig 5. Example of the Store Information Fig 3. Setting for Use or Disuse of the Credit Card Payment 4.4 Search Results When the user sets five components: current place, place to return, time to return, sightseeing categories, and use or disuse of the credit card payment, and then carries out a search, the screen image in figure 4 will be displayed. In the search results, the application displays the tourist route and a sightseeing plan with the map in the upper part. At the same time, it displays a tourist route and a sightseeing plan with the text. In a sightseeing plan with the text, names of sightseeing spots and stores are displayed. The user can view sightseeing information by tapping those names of sightseeing spots and stores. This sightseeing information will be displayed using the information list that we made in list of the sightseeing information. In addition, this application has Change button beside names of a sightseeing spots or stores. The user can change the route to the different sightseeing spot or store in the same sightseeing categories by tapping Change button. The operation example is indicated in figure 6. By this system, the user thinks about one s favorite sightseeing and can make the user s original sightseeing route or the sightseeing plan. This application enables guidance of the sightseeing that is very high diversity. Fig 6. Example of the Change of Sightseeing Spot Fig 4. Search Results Example 5 Comparison Experiment between Existing Sightseeing And Application of This Research In this research, we are developing a new application to guide sightseeing by a method totally different from the existing guidebooks and applications. As a beginning of the comparison experiment, we actually saw the sights by three methods: Sightseeing using a guidebook ; Sightseeing using a smart phone : Sightseeing using the application of this research, and carried out a comparison experiment. In this chapter, we will review an experiment method and experiment results.

5 234 Int'l Conf. Software Eng. Research and Practice SERP' Experiment Method In this research, we carried out the comparison experiment for the three sightseeing methods: Sightseeing using a guidebook ; Sightseeing using a smart phone ; Sightseeing using the application of this research. We set almost same conditions and carried out sightseeing by three methods. And we compared each sightseeing method from experiment results and considered superiority and a refinement of this application. 5.2 Setting of the Sightseeing Condition Sightseeing conditions are indicated in table 3. Table 3. Sightseeing conditions in this experiment Condition 1 Condition 2 Condition 3 We set those conditions and saw the sights by each method, and considered the experiment results. 5.3 Experiment Results Sightseeing area form Ikebukuro to Tokyo Station Sightseeing time from 13:00 to 17:00 Add lunch (Japanese food) in the sightseeing route Experiment results on Sightseeing using a guidebook, Sightseeing using a smart phone, and Sightseeing using the application of this research, are indicated in table 4, table 5, and table 6. Table 4. Sightseeing using guidebook Table 5. Sightseeing using smart phone Order Sightseeing route Area 1 Sushi Mamire Japanese food Ikebukuro 2 Namco Namja town Sightseeing spot Ikebukuro 3 Gokoku-jinja Shrine (Shrine) Ikebukuro 4 Senso-ji (Tenmple) Ueno 5 Nakamise Shopping Street (Sightseeing spot) Ueno 6 Tokyo Station (Souvenir) Tokyo Table 6. Sightseeing using application of this research Order Sightseeing route Area 1 Manmaru (Japanese food) Ikebukuro 2 3 Ancient Orient Museum (Museum) Nakamise Shopping Street (Sightseeing spot) Ikebukuro Ueno 4 Radio Center (Souvenir) Akihabara 5 Kanda Shrine (Shrine) Akihabara Order Tourist route Area 6 Red-brick Tokyo Station (Sightseeing spot) Tokyo 1 Sunshine city aquarium (aquarium) Ikebukuro 2 Unagi Kappo IZUEI (Japanese food) Ueno 3 4 Ameya-yokocho market (sightseeing spot) Tokyo Sweet Land (sightseeing spot) Ueno Tokyo 5 Tokyo Station (Souvenir) Tokyo Through this experiment, the remarkable difference that we felt was Difference of the required time before deciding a sightseeing spot. For Sightseeing using a guidebook and Sightseeing using a smart phone, at first the user has to decide where oneself goes to. In this experiment, we spent considerable time to decide the first sightseeing spot. On the other hand, regarding Sightseeing using the application of this research, at first we targeted the sightseeing spots that one wants to go in sightseeing categories and then a rough plan of the tourist route was displayed. In regards to the application of this research, the user could change the sightseeing spot that oneself wants to go to from the first tourist route for the decision. Therefore it did not take time before deciding a tourist route. There was also a problem about required time for sightseeing. Regarding Sightseeing using the application of

6 Int'l Conf. Software Eng. Research and Practice SERP' this research, transferring time and required time for sightseeing are displayed for search results. With the system, we saw the sights checking the time. As a result, we finished planned sightseeing smoothly and arrived back at Tokyo Station on time. But, we need to decide the tourist route by ourselves, in regards to Sightseeing using a guidebook. Therefore we had to think about required time for the sightseeing route and had to practice the plan. Also, we had to transfer while always watching the guidebook. it was difficult to do sightseeing while being conscious of time. As a result, we were just able to see the five spots without enough time though planned to go to six spots. On the other hand, in regards to Sightseeing using smart phone, transferring time to a sightseeing spot was displayed, but required time for sightseeing was not displayed. Time lag occurred and it was not sightseeing on schedule. From these results, the application of this research has higher performance for time comparing with a common sightseeing methods, and it is thought that there is superiority. Regarding Sightseeing using a guidebook, we visited a sightseeing spots and stores listed in the guidebook basically. Therefore the sightseeing information is limited. However, this application can display local sightseeing spots and stores, which are not on the guidebook. And also, in regards to Sightseeing using a smart phone, famous stores are displayed as search results mainly. With the smart phone, we could research the local sightseeing spots, but it took much time. 5.4 Problem point of this application From these experiment results, Multiple sightseeing spots scheduling system being developed in this research has high cost-performance for the time in particular. On the other hand, we discovered the problems with this application. Change button for the sightseeing spots or stores that we implemented newly has the problem. In sightseeing using the application of this research by this experiment, we intended to change the sightseeing spot from a suggested sightseeing spot displayed initially. But, it was hard to understand where a displayed sightseeing spot was at all when we tapped the change button and the alternative was displayed. As a result, a sightseeing route was displayed in a strange way when we changed it into one in far-off area. Also, all sightseeing spots in the specified sightseeing categories was displayed. As a result, it was very difficult to change a sightseeing spot. It is necessary for us to revise a system to change the sightseeing spots. As the solution, we think about a system possessing priority ranking in sightseeing categories. In the current system, sightseeing categories require the user to choose all the categories that one wants to go for sightseeing. We also think about letting this system display only an appropriate sightseeing spots by possessing priority ranking such as The spots that user wants to go most or The category that user want to go second most. 6 Conclusion and Future Research In this research, we are developing Multiple sightseeing spots scheduling system enabling guidance of new sightseeing. In this paper, we have carried out the comparison experiment for three sightseeing methods: Sightseeing using a guidebook ; Sightseeing using a smart phone : Sightseeing using the application of this research. From the experiment results, we considered superiority of this application, discovered problems with this application and aims at future improvement. We carried out the experiment only by the authors without enough time. The next experiment would be the examinee test in which more people do sightseeing using this application actually. We will verify the difference from other styles of sightseeing in more detailed way and discover problems for further improvement of this application. 7 References [1] Japan National Tourism Organization, Trend of the number of the visit to Japan foreign visitors, [2] The World Economic Forum The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015, el&tourism_r eport_2015.pdf [3] Japan Tourism Agency, Inbound Travel Promotion Project (Visit Japan Project), [4] Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Cool Japan / Creative Industries Policy, creative_indust ries/creative_industries.html [5] K. OGAWA, Y. SUGIMOTO, K. NAITO, T. HISHIDA, T, MIZUNO, Basic design of a sightseeing recommendation system using Characteristic Words, IPSJ SIG technical reports 2014-MBL-71(14), 1-6, [6] M. URATA, S. NAGAO, F. KATO, M. ENDO, T. YASUDA, Photo Rally System to Support Tourists in Tourism Areas [In Japanese] Journal of the Japan Information-culture Society 21(2), 11-18, [7] Jalan, Introduction of the tour guide application -Jalan net-, [8] Shigeo Kuroda, TABIMARU Tokyo, Shobunsya Publications, Inc., August 2015