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Despite being one of the highly sought-after sectors worldwide, the tourism and service industry undergoes major challenges. Issues such as labor shortage, high mobility of human resources, and others often pose a pain point within the industry. Driven to resolve such existing challenges and issues existing within the industry, TradFit Co Ltd was inspired to acknowledge and solve these pain points to facilitate the industry further. It was established to address travel and tourism-associated pain points, such as language and communication barriers, and others.
In addition to chronic personnel shortages and the aspects of coping with languages, increased personnel costs and operational efficiency issues are some of the primary concerns that hinder the growth of the industry. Moreover, the global pandemic pushed the service industry into a further challenging pathway.
As a result, the service area tasks were delegated to artificial intelligence, which would protect employees as well as lower costs. TradFit provides a solution to this with the applications that can use on AI speakers with graphics supporting multiple languages. The integrated applications not only solving the chronic personnel shortages, but also increasing revenue and reducing costs for accommodation.
TradFit serves as a provider of accommodation facility solutions. The solutions are able to provide various types of orders and FAQs from accommodation guests while providing recommendations inside and outside the accommodation facilities. Customers can also get answers to search for restaurants, directions for nearby sightseeing spots, orders for amenities, and many more.
If the content of the conversation is not in the database, or if the AI speaker cannot respond to the content or language, a QR code will be displayed on the screen, which can be read by the customer’s smartphone to activate the multilingual chat system and continue the response. The multilingual chat system is available in 16 languages, and by sending questions and requests in the customer’s native language, the chat system will automatically translate the content and correctly understand the content of the customer’s request in order to respond.
TradFit’s ‘concierge applications’ and ‘chat concierge system’ for tourist and lodging facilities use multilingual voice agent terminals with images, and management screens for lodging facilities that seamlessly connect them, which can streamline operations. It solves the problems of shortage of manpower and multilingual support for lodging facilities.
TradFit’s services allow facilities to focus on providing hospitality to the requests of guests. It offers recommendations for facilities tenants, services and many more. In addition to contactless voice operation, the company’s chat system (combining AI with human response) enables integrated management that includes special requests from guests. By analyzing the accumulated big data, TradFit visualizes the requests of accommodation guests both at peak and off-peak times, leading to further improvements in operations, services, and marketing.
TradFit addresses challenges by providing case studies that include how the company has helped clients overcome their challenges and attain desired outcomes with an innovative array of solutions. The company has a large track of the implementation of its services. Its key offerings can be managed without contact and remotely by small number of people, which allows employee protection as well as improves work-life balance.
On one hand, while several accommodation facilities are experimenting through trial and error methods to hold down even small expenditures, TradFit’s services allow revision of unnecessary expenses. In addition, because guest room appliances are controlled by voice, guests do not have to physically touch them, and the staff and cleaning companies can work hands-free or remotely—achieving COVID-19 countermeasures. The company supplies services that help provide safety and reassurance to the guests and the staff of accommodation facilities.
Numerous players in the market are trying to provide translation services to businesses. However, the way TradFit has positioned itself against all other competitors has been remarkable. TradFit are invested in R&D and building up a dominant position with major domestic and foreign companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Sony Group, etc. that makes it difficult for other companies to gain access. TradFit already has powerful patents, related to voice assistant services, including software as well as hardware. Software also covers applications and browsers in hardware that placed in the room, and in smartphones and tablets owned by the consumers. These patents cover all the main systems that hotels use in Japan, other Asian countries, the EU, and the U.S.
Further elaborating on their strategy Toda says, “We have built up dominance through the acquisition of the patents for business, development, data volumes, and other core areas”. By accumulating large volumes of data, the company has rapidly improved its services and quickly undertaken intellectual property strategies. by having those patents, other competitors cannot provide services similar services
TradFit has established a full patents strategy, and its strength of it has been continually improving. Among the powerful patents that TradFit has, a few patents are included as follows.
Smart Travel:
By using the basic patented technology “Smart Travel”, the company will be able to exclusively provide “travel information on restaurants, sightseeing spots, activities, etc. according to the guest’s preference by accepting the guest’s request from the AI speaker”, which is expected to increase the sales and profits of the service. The service is expected to increase sales and profits. A number of other patent applications have been filed, and we are building a strong patent portfolio to expand our exclusive domain that only TradFit can provide.
Room Smart Control:
By using the basic patented technology “Room Smart Control”, they will provide a suited room environment exclusively. Speaking about an example, room temperature and lighting to be automatically optimized for the guests by accepting their requests from AI speakers”.
Automatic Robot Transportation:
Using the patented technology “automatic robot transportation”, it will be possible to exclusively provide “transporting the sheets, bath towels, amenities, cleaning tools, etc. used for room making to the guest room by the transportation robot”, and it improves the business operations of the accommodation.
Multilingual Chatbot:
Using the basic patented technology “multilingual chatbot,” it will be possible to exclusively provide “switching to a multilingual chatbot instantly by simply reading the QR code displayed on the AI speaker.
TradFit works with multiple cultural teams to take challenges and inequalities and disparities throughout the world using creativity and technology. The company is a multicultural flat international team, with members from diverse backgrounds. Besides a diverse culture, TradFit also works with industry experts who have expertise in speech recognition and natural language processing, including machine learning, to help strengthen its products.
The inspiring and creative company culture encourages engineers to handle cutting-edge technologies such as voice interfaces, natural language understanding solutions, human-computer interaction technologies, and many more. Additionally, TradFit continually rolls out better services and business insights by analyzing various big data using machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Owing to its innovative offerings, TradFit has been recognized with several awards. In 2022, the company won the Encouragement Award in the Startup category at the “3rd IP BASE AWARD”, which recognizes the best players of startups and intellectual property. Moreover, the company is continually providing innovative solutions and improving our products and services and has started to build up our patents strategy since its launching.
The automation and labor-saving of inquiries using AI speakers and chat systems are not limited to accommodation facilities such as hotels, but there is also a high need for nursing care facilities and hospitals. Currently, TradFit is receiving a rapid increase in inquiries from various industries such as real estate, private lodging, retail, and mobility, and is striving for future developments. As for their prospects, TradFit plan to contribute and extend to following domains and industries.
COVID-19 countermeasure, contactless, non-personal, manpower saving while protecting jobs, remotely possible. Expand to industries where DX will rapidly advance in the future due to labor intensity, labor shortages, and dependence on subsidies, and where horizontal expansion across countries and industries is possible through Vertical SaaS.
Solving labor-intensive issues such as labor shortages, high turnover, and difficulties in multilingual support, together with our original services and collaborative (co-creation) partners who have strengths in technology and customer channels.
Expansion into healthcare, various financial institutions, MaaS (cars and logistics), and smart cities, which are social infrastructure, such as hospitals and nursing care.
The company’s service is achieving powerful growth and hence, it is planning to capture a large share of the Japanese market and expand to markets in other Asian countries, including the EU, and the U.S. With influential patents and collaboration with major domestic and foreign companies, TradFit’s service and solutions hold the potential to solve the challenges in multiple industries and continue to provide innovative solutions that create value for all.
We have built up dominance through the acquisition of powerful patents for business, development, data volumes, and other core areas. By accumulating large volumes of data, we have rapidly improved our services and quickly undertaken intellectual property strategies, giving us a dominant position that makes it difficult for other companies to gain access.
As Japan’s working population decreases, our ability to provide services operated naturally by voice has led to inquiries, not just from the accommodation and tourism industry, but also from many other industries. Looking abroad, people in countries with low literacy rates can still access information and enjoy services, helping to alleviate inequalities and disparities in the world. Our services can contribute to solving social issues made apparent by the COVID-19 pandemic.
TradFit understand that overly focusing on growth alone would trap them in seeing nothing but sales. And this would cause us to deviate from the ‘three goods’ principle (good for the seller, good for the buyer, and good for society) they value. TradFit are steadily working on the business together with various partner companies and the policies of the prefectural governments, focusing on solutions to social issues in Japan. Domestic and overseas collaborative partners will begin to bring world-first and industry-first business to other countries and aim to IPO. But an IPO is just one path to growth and not a goal in itself. We are building business realistically without pursuing easy money. We wish to collaborate openly with our partners to solve problems in the world based on the ‘three goods’ principle and the concepts of the SDGs and ESG.
