“otomo,” a private tour service for overseas travelers, has expanded its service to Kansai area – Now they have more than 200 tour plans in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and other five prefectures

May 19, 2019

Registration for guides starts in March 2019 and booking a tour will start in June 2019 for tours in Kansai

otomo Inc. (Tokyo, CEO: Yuki Hiratsuka) has expanded their private tour service to Kansai area. There will be more than 60 kinds of tour plans in Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, and Hyogo.

[Guide registration] https://otomo-travel.com/guides

[Booking a tour] https://otomo-travel.com/

▼About the service

otomo officially launched the service in January 2019, and as of today, there are more than 400 registered guides and more than 150 kinds of tour plans. Kansai area is popular for overseas travelers: Osaka is the second most visited prefecture and Kyoto is the fourth most visited prefecture (*1). Now, to develop their service even more, they have expanded their service to Kansai area. Registration for guides has started in March, and they will start accepting reservations from June 2019.

▼About tour plans

To meet the variety of needs of travelers, there are original and unique tour plans. All the tour plans are made based on surveys conducted by the company.

[Example tour plans]

Osaka

A tour to discover the roots of Danjiri Festival (Kishiwada / 5.5h)
Visit Old Fashioned, Nostalgic, Retro District in Osaka (Yodoyabashi / 4h)

Kyoto

Compare the Taste of Many Kinds of “sake” to Find Your Best (Fushimi / 5.5h)
Visit temples where worship the beauty god and rabbits (Gion / 6h)

Nara

A tour to discover old town and traditional industry in the town known for goldfish farming and indigo dye (Yamatokoriyama / 5h)

Hyogo

Discover the history of the great earthquake – revived Kobe (Kobe / 6.5h)

Tour plans available places (more than 60 plans in Kansai area)

▼Do you want to be a guide?

Anyone over 18 years old with a certain level of foreign language skills can register as a guide regardless of nationality (*2), occupation, and qualification. The fee will be paid by a user of the service in the range of 1000 to 10000 JPY per hour and guides can decide the amount as they wish. You can register from the website of the company. And after registering, you have to upload your ID and have an interview with the company staff. As of March 2019, there are more than 400 registered guides (30% of them are guide interpreters). The guides vary in age from the 20s to 60s and in occupation from students, workers, housewives to retired workers.

▼About otomo

otomo is a private tour service that introduces overseas visitors a tour guide who speaks foreign languages. There are guides who speak English, Chinese, Cantonese, and Korean and there are more than 200 tour plans in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Nara, and Hyogo. Tourists choose a tour plan and guide to request a reservation. Then a guide will receive the request and respond if they are available or not within 24 hours. If the guide is available, the reservation is done. The price varies depending on guides. If tourists do not want to choose a guide by themselves, the company will choose one for them after receiving a reservation request.

Book from here: https://otomo-travel.com/

[Past press release]

1 – Official launch of the service – more than 150 tours are available in Kanto area (January 22, 2019)
2 – Launch of referral promotion – tell a friend about us 100 times and get total of 300,000 JPY worth reward (February 5, 2019)
3 – Concluded a blanket insurance contract with Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance – providing free insurance to tour participants and guides (February 19, 2019)

*Check other past press release articles (Japanese) https://prtimes.jp/main/html/searchrlp/company_id/40326

<About otomo Inc.>

Address: 3F Santomi Building, 3-13-3 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
CEO: Yuki Hiratsuka
Establishment: April 2017
Capital: 107 million (incl. capital reserve)
Business: Operating private tours for overseas visitors / design consulting business
Registration No.: 3-7570 approved by the governor of Tokyo

Website: https://otomo-inc.com

<Inquiries regarding this article>

otomo Inc. (Kitagawa / Otani)
Email: press@otomo-travel.com
Tel: 03-6876-6003

*1 Consumption Trend Survey for Foreigners Visiting Japan from July to September 2018 (Japan Tourism Agency)
*2 Citizens with a foreign nationality is required to have a status of residence in Japan to work as a guide