Solare Hotels & Resorts, one of Japan’s leading hospitality chain, provides now a smart assistance application to translate Japanese into English, Chinese or Korean.
Solare Hotels & Resorts Co., Ltd. is pleased to introduce a new service for guests visiting Japan from overseas. Available free of charge at 20 hotels in the Solare chain throughout Japan from August 20th, 2012, a new device provides translation service by using the video chat function of iPad.
This service is provided by Inden Consulting Co., Ltd. It uses video chat on an iPad in a Wi-Fi environment to provide translation services for Solare hotel guests as the group has seen a sharp increase of guests originated from China, Korea and other Asian countries. Solare has been also providing language training and upgrading to hotel staff, encouraging them to learn English, Chinese(Mandarin) and Korean.
The technology will help to respond quickly to the language needs of guests from overseas and make their stay in Japan even more comfortable. Using the increasingly prevalent iPad as a terminal, the service takes advantage of in-hotel Wi-Fi environments, using the video chat function to interpret guests’ questions using interpreters between Japanese and English, Chinese and Korean.
The app, named “smart assist”, will be able to provide our guests the easy interpretation service when it’s most needed, enhancing their stay our hotels and in Japan.
Solare has begun offering smart assist at 20 of our hotels throughout Japan. Overseas guests will have free access to smart assist while inside the hotels. They are 20 hotels around the country providing the service in cities such as Tokyo, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nagasaki, Nagoya, Okinawa, Osaka and Sapporo among others.
As of August 2012, Solare Hotels & Resorts Co., Ltd., and it’s ca. 4,500 associates operate, franchise and asset-manage 75 hotels and some 12,706 rooms throughout Japan.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
