Stickers and selfies unite in this niche travel app for Thai visitors to Japan

Yuta Umeki (left) with Gear8 CEO Akihito Mizuno.

In Sapporo, the capital of Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, the average February temperature is about 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit). Despite the frigid weather, Sapporo’s annual Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) attracts 2 million visitors from around the world who come to marvel at snow and ice sculptures, slurp down miso ramen, and imbibe at the city’s numerous beer halls.

A surprising number of those foreign visitors are coming from Thailand, where the capital city of Bangkok averages a sweltering 31 degrees C (88 degrees F) during the same month. Nearly 100,000 Thai tourists visited Sapporo in fiscal 2013 – compared to 37,000 in fiscal 2012. That number is expected to continue growing, and a small startup based a stone’s throw from the Snow Festival grounds is poised to be their one-stop-shop for local tourism.

Trippino Hokkaido is a Thai-language app (available on both iOS and Android) that connects Thai tourists to sightseeing spots, restaurants, nightlife, and shopping across Hokkaido. It launched on February 25.

As far as total visitors to Hokkaido, Thailand ranks fifth behind Taiwan, South Korea, China, and Hong Kong. Yuta Umeki, Trippino’s director, explains to Tech in Asia why his startup is – at least for now – solely focused on visitors from Thailand.

“While there is existing support for Chinese speakers, tourism infrastructure for Thai people is insufficient in Hokkaido,” he says. “Recent numbers show that the numbers of Thai tourists is already increasing, and that number is set to be given a major boost by [low-cost carrier] AirAsia X.”

The Thai division of AirAsia X announced last month that it will begin offering a daily direct flight from Bangkok to Hokkaido’s New Chitose Airport, on the outskirts of Sapporo. Thai Airways, Thailand’s domestic flag carrier, held a monopoly on BKK to CTS flights for the past two years. From March 26, Thai AirAsia X will also add a second daily flight to Tokyo and make its five-days-a-week flight to Osaka a daily departure.

Umeki says the apps have been downloaded a total of 2,000 times. The startup’s goal is to capture 60 to 70 percent of all inbound Thai tourists. If successful, the Trippino team may consider localizing the service for visitors from Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.

“We don’t have a lot of resources outside of Hokkaido,” Umeki says. “We only have 11 staff members, so we want to focus on the local market first.”

Capitalizing on the sticker craze