Delivered on April 6, 2026
Current Location of Inbound Human Flow Data and the Potential of Tourism DX
Speakers:
Daisuke Kainuma, Business Manager, Mobility Data Division, Navitime Japan Co., Ltd.
Affiliation and position information is as of the time of distribution
This is an episode about NAVITIME Japan's mobility data business. It discusses how NAVITIME utilizes GPS and route search data to support a wide range of fields, including tourism, urban development, and transportation planning, and how their "Japan Travel by NAVITIME" service for foreign visitors is expanding into areas such as regional tourism and overtourism countermeasures. In the future, they plan to expand their value proposition into even more diverse areas by incorporating bicycle and public transport data, as well as AI, in addition to inbound tourism. Please listen to their story.
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Serving Global Industries with Route Search Technology: The History of NAVITIME Japan
NAVITIME Japan Co., Ltd. is a leading Japanese navigation service company, now in its 26th year of operation. At its core lies route search technology, pursued by founders Keisuke Onishi and Shin Kikuchi since their university research days. At the time, Onishi researched car and pedestrian navigation, while Kikuchi studied public transport transfer guidance. The company was born from the idea that combining these two areas could realize "door-to-door" navigation, providing seamless guidance from origin to destination.
The company's management philosophy is "Serving global industries with route search technology." It offers services not only for individual users ("NAVITIME" and "Transfer NAVITIME"), but also for the logistics industry (support tools) and tour buses ("Schedule Cloud"), providing services in all areas related to transportation. With a history dating back to the early days of feature phones, collaborating with KDDI Corporation to provide GPS-based navigation, the company possesses unparalleled expertise in the accumulation and analysis of travel data.
Three Data Provision Models Promoted by the Mobility Data Divisio
The Mobility Data Division, led by Mr. Kainuma, utilizes the vast amount of GPS data, pedestrian flow probe data, and route search data accumulated through its own services for business purposes. The division primarily provides data to local governments and companies through the following three models:
The first is the provision of the "Profiler Series," which allows for self-analysis on the web. Users can directly operate the tool to extract and analyze the necessary pedestrian flow data, enabling immediate use in their own operations and marketing. The second is data linkage and data provision tailored to specific projects. This includes not only direct data provision but also providing inbound data and other resources from Navitime Japan to partner companies such as KDDI Corporation's "KDDI Location Analyzer (KLA)" and Blogwatcher Co., Ltd., utilizing them as part of analysis tools that leverage each company's strengths.
The third is a reporting service based on the company's specialized expertise. Rather than simply providing data, the company compiles analysis results into detailed reports, providing concrete support for solving problems in a wide range of fields, including tourism, urban development, and public transportation.
Receiving the Prime Minister's Award at the Japan Service Awards and Deepening the Inbound Strategy
A major milestone for NAVITIME Japan was the receipt of the Prime Minister's Award at the 5th Japan Service Awards in December 2025 for its tourism navigation service for foreign visitors, "Japan Travel by NAVITIME."
This service has been provided for over 10 years to create an environment where foreign visitors can travel safely and securely in Japan. It was highly praised for its sincere efforts to address social issues such as promoting regional tourism and combating overtourism, going beyond simple route guidance. In recent years, with growing social momentum for utilizing human flow data, this award has further enhanced the credibility of the company's inbound-related business, leading to a surge in inquiries from local governments and companies.
A Multifaceted Approach to Overtourism Based on Data and Tourism DX
Regarding overtourism, currently the biggest concern in the tourism industry, Mr. Kainuma emphasizes the need for a calm assessment of the current situation using data and the necessity of countermeasures. The problem isn't simply the large number of tourists; the causes are diverse and vary from region to region, including insufficient capacity in the transportation network and uneven distribution of people, concentrating at specific locations and times.
For example, in popular tourist destinations like Kyoto, they are experimentally implementing guidance that optimally utilizes buses and trains to distribute the flow of people concentrated on specific routes. While navigation services typically present the shortest and fastest routes, deliberately encouraging "dispersion" to reduce the overall burden on the region is a unique approach made possible by the company's vast data and advanced algorithms.
Furthermore, data utilization is not only about solving problems, but also about gaining a deeper understanding of tourist behavior and context to provide higher-quality tourism experiences and ultimately increase regional revenue. This is precisely the essence of data-driven tourism DX (digital transformation).
The Future of AI Utilization and Further Potential of Mobility Data
To further utilize people flow data, the introduction of AI technology is accelerating. Navitime Japan has begun using AI not only to improve development efficiency but also at the product level. Specifically, in inbound reports, complex human flow data is summarized using AI, incorporating features that make the information easy for users to understand.
Going forward, by utilizing generative AI and other technologies to lower the barrier to interpreting the obtained data, we aim to create an environment where even non-experts can easily benefit from the value of the data. Furthermore, the company's strengths are not limited to inbound data. They possess a wide variety of mobility resources, including automobile probe data, bicycle probe data, and even public transport timetables and accurate operational data. In the future, by combining this multifaceted data, they envision solving challenges in industries and areas that are still not adequately supported, and providing even more sophisticated services.
Summary
Through this discussion, the depth of route search technology that Navitime Japan has cultivated over 26 years and the multifaceted value of the mobility data derived from it have been highlighted. Their inbound tourism measures, which received the Prime Minister's Award, are a concrete success story of how data can solve social problems and create new value. The company's approach of interpreting the "context of movement" beyond mere statistics to address complex issues such as overtourism countermeasures and regional revitalization is extremely important for the future of tourism DX. With the evolution of AI technology, there are high expectations for a future where human flow data becomes more accessible and user-friendly. As LBMA Japan, we will continue to widely share this cutting-edge knowledge and contribute to the further promotion of the utilization of location information data and the development of the industry.