RoomBoss, together with JTB Hokkaido, Kutchan Town, Kutchan Tourism Association, Niseko Tourism, Niseko Resort Tourism Association and OpenTone, is currently developing a tourism-focused digital “mapplication” as part of the Japan Tourism Agency’s “Demonstration Project for Emergency Measures to Promote Tourism DX for the Realization of Highly Sustainable Tourism Destination Management”.

Alongside offering interactive restaurant, hot-spring, and activity information, the application will be connected a variety of external services to allow users to check lift operation status, offer live location-tracking of in-resort shuttle buses, and provide a variety of helpful information to visitors to Niseko in a compact and easy-to-use format.

The web application is scheduled to be operational from December 2022.

• Easier upload of photos for guests purchasing lift tickets online, as part of our SKIDATA integrated webshop. Never easier for skiers to arrange their season passes online, pick up in resort from a vending machine, and head directly to the slopes!

RoomBoss team members met with MLIT and representatives from 6 car transportation companies at MLIT’s Sapporo office. It was great to receive additional feedback from the transportation companies, to help shape the upcoming system RB is developing to assist them and rental car companies work together more efficiently.

We are looking forward to providing a lift pass webshop for Able Hakuba Goryu & Hakuba47 ski resorts.

The multilingual SKIDATA-integrated solution will allow customers to purchase lift pass products online and go directly to the ski lifts.

• Improvements to our integration with Stripe including improved support for image and text branding on the payment page.
• Rates management updates including the ability to directly sync rate plans into Airbnb.

We’re still not sure if we’re proud or embarrassed, but our managing director Julian was on stage as part of a rock band performing at the Niseko Hirafu Festival on August 20th.

One thing we can say for sure is that it was loud!

A variety of visual updates were made to our Accommodation Booking Engine, including:

• Extended hotel media and product descriptions on the checkout page, helping you to better inform and convert prospective guests.
• Improvements to the responsive accommodation gallery user experience, making it easier to browse through hotel and room photographs on mobile devices.

• Upgraded our connection with Square to use their latest API for taking online payments.
• Improvements and bug fixes to our integration with Neppan channel manager.
• Added new fields to our automated sync with Freshsales CRM.
• Added a new feature to more easily record check-in and check-out times for guests, including the ability to report on times to help determine patterns and plan front desk rosters.
• Added discount code functionality to our new POS system, making it easier to quickly apply pre-determined pricing changes to customer bookings.

An exciting new project; RoomBoss will be developing a system for Hokkaido District Transport Bureau’s Rental Car Transportation DX project.

With the goals of improving the efficiency and the average loading-rate of carrier cars and reducing vehicle transportation costs, our new system will help to increase the number of rental car users at each regional airport and create more opportunities for the travellers to visit wider areas of Hokkaido.

This initial phase will start from November 2022 through March 2023.

Hokkaido District Transport Bureau press release:

https://wwwtb.mlit.go.jp/hokkaido/press/20220725_00002.html

• A QR code can now be embedded within Booking Confirmation PDFs. The QR code is compatible for scanning with our POS app to record that a customer has redeemed a service or entered an attraction.
• In response to requests to add more information on tasks assigned to team members, we’ve doubled the amount of text that can be entered.
• BookEasy Sync Support - Good news for the accommodation providers, additional support is now available to sync availability and rates to BookEasy, a popular platform used by travel agents.