Time-stamp: "2010/09/06 14:03:51(JST) by yoshinov"

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English Version

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Service Survey by Service

ゆかたクレジット 2009

2009年度,私たちは城崎温泉で「ゆかたクレジット」プロジェクトに着手しました.2009年度の成果をビデオにまとめましたのでご覧下さい.約17分と少々長いのですが・・・後半には豊岡市の中貝市長のインタビューもあります.なんとかそこまではご覧ください♪その後は僕が出てるだけですので暇なときに見てくださいまし.ちょっといいこと言ってるかもしれません(言ってないかもしれません).

新聞報道

昨年度の仕事

2008年度の調査事業ではGPSを利用した行動調査を担当しました.

もてなしを科学する

紹介記事

ITPro 温泉客の楽しみ方が分かる城崎温泉「ゆかたクレジット」(2009/11/12)

地元でサービス工学のシンポジウム

Yukata 2009(KINOSAKI HOT SPRING RESORT) English version

Subtitle

Introduction

Service industry is now a key industry of Japan. It covers more than 70% of Japan's GDP. Yet, its productivity increase is lower than manufacturing industry. Therefore its improvement is urgently required.
To find a resolution, AIST has established Center for Service Research. This Center is carrying out studies to create new service through scientific and engineering approach. To promote tourism, it is essential to obtain objective data for service productivity.

However it is not an easy task. Center for Service Research is conducting R & D, "Collecting and accumulating objective data by introducing IT services", through an engineering approach.
For promotion of tourism, we show you one example of our research and study. This is our collaborative work with Kinosaki Hot Spring in Hyogo Prefecture. Yukata Credit at Kinosaki Hot Spring Activating the region by Service engineering:

KINOSAKI Hot Spring Spa

Kinosaki Hot Spring is located in San-in area in the western part of Honshu Island. Boasting a long history of 1400 years, it is still maintaining an atmosphere of a traditional spa resort. Attracting one million tourists every year, Kinosaki offers lots of funs to stroll through the street and to hop around several spas wearing traditional Japanese Yukata.
In Kinosaki, each hotel has its unique pattern on Yukata. Because their hotel is easily identified by its Yukata pattern, tourists can go out and enjoy shopping and dining at specified shops and restaurants with no cash. And payments will be settled at the hotel when they check-out. Yet this service was limited to specified shops and restaurants only.
To avail this service to more and more shops and restaurants, Center for Service Research has developed "Yukata Credit" jointly with Kinosaki Hot Spring. This has been realized based on the service information developed by Center for Service Research.

Outline of Yukata Credit

Kinosaki Hot spring has 7 public spas. Hotel guests used to receive tickets for each spa at hotel reception and go out with cash.
By newly developed Yukata Credit service, tourists can enjoy convenient cash-free shopping and dining by way of a transport IC card or Mobile phone in stead of cash.

Yukata Credit system can provide various types of services according to the needs of the area. Here we show you the example of services by bar-code ticket for spa and IC card for shopping.

Yukata Credit (at the hotel)

At the hotel reception, bar-code spa ticket is issued. This ticket contains the guest information such as gender, age etc.
Formerly, tourists were obliged to have each ticket for each spa. Now they can enjoy any spas any time with this single ticket.

Hotel is also prepared to provide IC card.

So, if the hotel guests do not have their own IC card, they can use this IC card by depositing some amount. A sticker containing guest information is attached to the IC card. Now Yukata Credit is ready.

Yukata Credit (at public spa)

When entering spa, bar-code is recognized by bar-code reader.
By this system, it becomes easy to know the number of visitors of each spa, frequency of the visit, outline of the visitors etc.Therefore these data may lead to the possible introduction of the further enhanced service.

Also it is easy to grasp the congestion situation of the each spa. So, hotel guests can obtain appropriate information and guidance before they go out.

Yukata Credit also has the facility of audio guide named Kinosaki-Guide. Tourists can enjoy strolling around the streets with this audio-guide. This facility has Japanese version as well as English and Korean version. When this audio-guide facility is enhanced, tourists can enjoy many kinds of contents such as popular animation character.

Yukata Credit (at souvenir shop)

Find a fancy shop while touring spa? You can make shopping by Yukata Credit IC card. No cash is required. This also saves the payment trouble. While shopping, you can also settle the balance or withdraw necessary amount from IC card. Tourists also may settle the IC card when they check out the hotel. According to the needs of the area or circumstances, Yukata Credit is ready to provide flexible services such as incentives, discounts etc.
The service of Yukata Credit is also applicable to your own IC card or mobile phone with payment facility.

Users' comments:

Tourists:
This service is very convenient as I can go out without cash. I also feel happy to receive many benefits such as discounts and so on.

Shopkeeper:
I hope people will enjoy staying in Kinosaki. Yukata Credit is the most convenient way to enjoy spas and shopping. Younger generations have no hesitation to use IC card. In case the tourists need petty cash for soft drinks or whatever, we can provide cash out from the IC card. These actions will enhance communications with customers and make friendly relations.

Hotel owner:
I believe this is a very convenient system for tourists. In Kinosaki, we have been making our comprehensive effort all together among hotels, shops, and spas. This is the reason why we could achieve this system. Formerly, we have been doing business activities based on our past experiences and intuition. By introducing this system, it is made possible to acquire objective data. This will help us to make Kinosaki more attractive.

Lots of Advantages

The introduction of IT system at Kinosaki Hot Spring provides lots of advantages for tourists and introducer. By this system, detailed data is collected. This data will be analyzed and applied for attracting more tourists, promoting communications with customers, speeding up payment procedures and cost reduction. Also this system makes it possible to measure the effect of the campaign event or other programs and will lead to the activation of the area corresponding to PDCA cycle.

Message from Mr. Nakagai, Mayor of Toyooka City

I am much interested in this Yukata Credit. Because this is the migration of Kinosaki's local culture and IT technology. Kinosaki Hot Spring has a long tradition of hospitality. However at Kinosaki, we welcome hotel guests to go out of the hotel and enjoy the hospitality of the whole town. 05:38 There are lots of enjoyments such as spas, tasty local food, amusements and much more.This tradition of hospitality combined with IT technology makes Kinosaki's hospitality more effective and appealing to the tourists. In other words, IT technology widens and deepens our spirit of hospitality to welcome and entertain the tourists.
When Kinosaki is getting more attractive, it will contribute to the city of Toyooka as a whole. Tourists coming to Kinosaki will find charming spots in other part of Toyooka city and enjoy sight-seeing and dining. As a mayor of Toyooka city, I strongly support this Yukata Credit project.

Message from Yamamoto, Ph.D

Service industry has been long time relying on the skill of an expert or an artisan. So the highly qualified service was limited and handing down those services were not easy. However economic impact is more on service industry rather than production industry. Therefore we consider necessary to review the services from the engineering point of view and try to increase its productivity.
To realize service is to understand and evaluate the services provided. Without knowing it, there will be no room for improvement. Knowing the evaluation of the services provided, people will know how it should be improved. By the cyclic process for improvement, we expect that the quality of services will be improved, leading to the possible emergence of people and companies with an international competitiveness.
Then how will it be realized ? One example is that data should be presented in numerical form. For example, this is the graph showing the number of people who visited the certain movie theater with an annual pass. A number of people who see cinema more than 4 times a year is quite low. Then this graph suggests the necessity to present a program or incentives to encourage people to come more than 4 times. Objective data makes it easy to create a new plan, to set a target, to evaluate the outcome of the plan, to verify the improvement. Without such a recycle of evaluation, it is not possible to get along with the change of the society and to deploy the limited resources effectively. Though people may consider it as natural and as a matter of course, it is not easy to introduce such an idea to the actual scene of services.
My idea is that the ultimate marketing is not a price reduction but to create a communication with the customer. So, my on-going challenge is to enrich the function to create communications. For example, the terminal at spa sends out messages to "twitter". As you might know twitter, this terminal will talk to you saying, let's say, "I am busy today ". I believe this function may be practically made useful. Also it is possible to converse with the terminal. Therefore it is my challenge that the communication with the terminal will attract attention from the people resulting in the increase of the tourists coming to Kinosaki.

Conclusion

We are collecting and analyzing customer behavior data to create and promote communications with the customer. In order to cope with the current needs of the time, AIST is proceeding with the service engineering in historical town of Kinosaki .

予算

平成21年度中小企業等製品性能評価事業(折り紙付き事業)

mailiconyoshinov.yamamoto@aist.go.jp