You could also request a translator or a photographer, but who wants that when you can have a ninja?!
Here’s an earnest question for you, readers: if you’ve visited Japan, was there ever a moment where you thought to yourself, “Man, Japan is so cool, but I just wish I had a ninja with me right now”?
No? Well, maybe you wished you had a professional photographer who could take a nice picture of you and your family in front of the life-size Unicorn Gundam in Odaiba? Or perhaps a professional interpreter to help you navigate a maid cafe in Akihabara?
If any of those situations applied to you, there will soon be an app for that! Starting next year you can download WappinGuide, which can instantly connect you to Japanese natives with all kinds of skills, who can help make your trip to Japan easier, more interesting, and/or more fun!
The app is designed to be able to bring a local guide or professional to you within 15 minutes. Based on photos, it seems like users will have the option to search for a professional via a map or by a requested skill, and each guide will have a profile showcasing their skills and explaining their rates.
There will also be a messaging function where clients and guides can communicate directly about meeting up, payments, and contracts, so offering and requesting services should be easy!
WappinGuide was developed by Survey Box, a relatively new company whose focus is the design, development, and sales of virtual labor, and it is the brainchild of CEO and 22-year old Waseda student Takeru Kobayashi. Kobayashi himself is a volunteer ninja guide in Tokyo, and thanks to all the time he has spent with foreign visitors, he has learned first hand the kinds of services they wished they had access to while in Japan.
That’s why he founded Survey Box and developed WappinGuide: to help visitors have the best possible time while on vacation in Japan. With the number of visitors to Japan reaching a new high of 30 million people this year, an app like this could be highly useful, both for visitors and for locals, who will now have a chance earn a little extra on the side.
WappinGuide is slated for released in the spring of next year, but registration for guides is now open to allow for the service to be fully online upon the app’s release. At first the app will only be available for iOS and in English, though there are plans for additional language capability in the future. Its services will also be limited to the Tokyo area to start with, but they will expand to other large cities in Japan over time.
Since authorities anticipate 920,000 foreign visitors per day during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, this could be a great opportunity for foreign language speakers and individuals with unique skills to make a little more than the Organizing Committee’s offering of $1.25 per hour. Perhaps this could also help increase Japan’s appeal for Western tourists, both before and after the Olympics, since they are less inclined to visit the country than their Asian counterparts. To have a ninja by your side in 15 minutes or less…I mean, who wouldn’t want that?!
Source: PR Times
Top/Featured image: PR Times
Insert Images: Pakutaso (1, 2), PR Times
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