Smart Omotenashi (Hospitality) on LINE at G20 FUKUOKA World Leaders in FinTech Experience "No Search, No Translation, No Wallet" Shopping

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    • LINE reveals its Cashless Payment & Communication features, the key to a cashless society, exclusively via the G20 FUKUOKA LINE official account.

    LINE Corporation (Head office: Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. Representative Director/President: Takeshi Idezawa), together with its subsidiary for mobile payment services through the LINE messaging app, LINE Pay Corporation (Head office: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo. Representative Director/CEO: Youngsu Ko. Hereafter referred to as "LINE Pay"), and Fukuoka-based subsidiary LINE Fukuoka Corporation (Head office: Hakata-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka Prefecture. Representative Director/President: Noritaka Ochiai), will be inviting attendees and press at the G20 Fukuoka Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting taking place on June 8 and 9, 2019 to try out their new Cashless Payment & Communication features, the key to a cashless society, via the G20 FUKUOKA LINE official account (LINE ID: @G20 FUKUOKA_LINE. Languages supported: Japanese and English).

    Project overview
    What is "No Search, No Translation, No Wallet" Smart Omotenashi (Hospitality) on LINE?

    According to a Japan Tourism Agency survey, common problems faced by visitors to Japan include finding out about places to visit and restaurants, communicating with staff at places they visit, and payment methods1.
    Through the G20 FUKUOKA LINE official account, LINE will introduce its Cashless Payment & Communication features, which allow people to find out about tourist spots and restaurants without needing to search for them, order without needing an interpreter, and pay without their wallet. Travel couldn't be any easier than this!

    「スマートなおもてなし」概念図

    Where and when you can participate
    • Event name: Fukuoka City presents "SPECIAL OMOTENASHI EVENT"
    • Date and time: 6pm-9pm, June 7, 2019
    • Venue: Joten-ji Temple (1-29-9 Hakata Ekimae, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka)
    • ・ On your smartphone, add the G20 Fukuoka official account, or borrow a device that already has the account added from those available at the event.
    • ・ Get information about tourist spots around the time of the event using personalized tour guidance. See ① below for details.
    • ・ Try out the Sit, Order & Pay system (detailed in ② below) at the yatai food stalls at the event.
    • ・ See the following link for more information:
    • https://www.g20fukuoka.city.fukuoka.lg.jp/news/archives/77

    Main features

    ①Personalized tour guide
    Big data geo-analytics specialist Nightley Inc. (Head office: 15-11 Nanpeidaicho, Shibuya City, Tokyo. Representative Director/President: Yutaka Ishikawa2) provides tourist spot recommendations personalized to each user, working from data about how popular each Fukuoka City tourist spot is with each nationality. "No Search, No Translation" tourist information guidance matches individual user's tastes, offering guidance to places outside of the usual tourist destinations as well as payment solutions at destinations.

    パーソナライズ観光案内概要図

    ②Sit, Order & Pay
    Feeling hungry? You can order and pay for food at restaurants using LINE. LINE will even tell you when your order's ready! Communication's a snap with "No Translation, No Wallet"! This feature was beta tested at the G20 Fukuoka Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting World Kitchen event that took place on January 9, 20193.

    LINE CHAT ORDER概要図

    Background to project
    Growing the local economy via inbound tourism and moving toward a truly cashless society

    One effective way of combating the problems of declining birth rates and an aging population on Kyushu's economy is by investing in inbound tourism. In order to offer easy payment services for foreign tourists, and also to enable our member stores to add foreign tourists to their domestic customer base, we announced our vision of a "Global Alliance" in 2019. We intend to make it possible for visitors to Japan from participating countries and regions such as South Korea and China to pay at LINE PAY member stores without having to download any new apps or register for any new services4.

    However, facilitating payments is not the only challenge at hand here. What about all the communication issues that can arise before and after payments are made, and the lost transactions that can result? We believe that facilitating smooth communication is essential to satisfying the needs of foreign tourists visiting Japan. The LINE Group has been closely involved with Fukuoka City's move towards cashless transactions, participating in cashless transaction trials and the like. We have come a long way together, even making it possible to pay city taxes and other bills via LINE Pay since April 2014, but we're not finished yet! We don't want cashless payments to simply be an alternative to paying with cash, but rather something that will impact and enrich the lives of the people of the city. Facilitating communication around transactions is a vital piece in this puzzle.

    We look forward to introducing our comprehensive range of features to both Japanese and foreign attendees at the G20 event, and to the valuable feedback that we will get from this regarding the usability of these services.

    The LINE Group isn't stopping here. We will continue to be exploit our cutting-edge technologies in areas such as AI and FinTech in order to make a prosperous and convenient Smart City a reality5.

    References (all links are to Japanese pages)
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