Gold Coast Cafe set to motivate travelers

Written by: Rebecca Milner on September 15, 2008 at 12:05 am | In Marketing & Ad Trends | 1 Comment

Tokyo has no shortage of theme restaurants, fantastical (and occasionally bizarre) spaces to transport customers temporarily and psychologically to another time and place. The new “Gold Coast Café” installment at the Travel Café in Shinjuku, however, is meant to actually inspire you to visit there.

Sponsored by the Australian and Queensland Tourism Board, the café has been turned into a three dimensional, multi-media brochure for the Gold Coast, with plasma screens playing promotional videos, travel books for available for browsing, and table tops papered over with pamphlet material. The white and blue design scheme is meant to evoke sandy beaches.

While all the branches of the Travel Café take travel, obviously, as their theme, the idea has to this point been more vague, such as interiors meant to evoke images of an airport lounge or “New York style” hotel bar.

Australia has long been a popular travel destination for Japanese from all demographics, although with rising fuel costs overseas destinations are facing stiffer competition from domestic ones.

On a somewhat related note, a recent survey by the Nikkei Marketing Journal asked 20-somethings to name the top three things on which they spend their pocket money. 10% selected domestic travel while 5% named overseas travel. Daily expenses and going out topped the list. On the other hand, reports the NMJ, if the same respondents had an extra ¥300,000 (about $2,800), 30% of the men and 40% of the women would spend it on domestic travel (the number two answer) while 25% of the men and 40% of the women picked overseas travel (third place). The number one answer was to put money in savings. If only the article gave us tips for getting that extra spending money…

Tags: Dining, Shinjuku, Survey, Travel
Category: Marketing & Ad Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Fashion & Lifestyle Trends

Russian-Japanese electronic dictionary, new typfaces show changing communication needs

Written by: Rebecca Milner on August 18, 2008 at 11:43 pm | In Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Technology & Gadget Trends | No Comments

That communication must evolve to meet the changing needs of the Japanese population is a given, how it does so with technology is the interesting part.

On August 26, the popular Casio series of Ex-word electronic dictionaries will be the first of its kind to offer a Russian-Japanese dictionary, the Ex-word XD-SP7700. (Available HERE)

In Japan, owning an English-Japanese electronic dictionary is like owning a calculator, an occasionally useful relic from one’s school days or a crucial business tool. Throw in the extra usage of overseas travel and you can imagine that most households have one of these lying around.

Of course English is not the only useful foreign language (even if it is the most studied one) and new languages are added to the line up of electronic dictionaries to reflect the growing interest in travel or business to a particular country. The Ex-word is already available in Chinese, Korean, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

We aren’t sure whether the perceived demand for the new language is indicative of the growth of Japanese-Russian business relations, but, needless to say, the dictionary makes use of all the latest features, like handwriting and touch screen panels and native pronunciation recordings of 10,000 words and 2,100 conversational phrases. There is also a Russian-English dictionary included.

On a different note, but still on the “changing communication needs” theme, Dai Nippon Printing has developed a new typeface that promises to be easier on the eyes of the growing elderly population. Shueiyokobuto Mincho, based on Dai Nippon’s original Shuetai Mincho typeface, will feature thicker horizontal lines while promising the maintain the flavor of the Ming-style font.

Dai Nippon intends the new typeface to be used for headlines and large-type books, and has 9,000 kanji characters already with 20,000 planned by the end of the year.

Tags: Aging Society, Electronics, Language, Travel
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Technology & Gadget Trends
Other categories: Marketing & Ad Trends