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How Japan Pro sells in twelve languages
The catalogue spoke two languages and its travellers did not. A listing now publishes in twelve, and no card is charged until the host accepts the booking.
- 12
- languages every listing publishes in
- Under 3 min
- from a submitted listing to all twelve live
- Company
- Japan Pro
- Industry
- Tourism
- Company size
- 20 to 40
- Location
- Japan
Challenge
Japan Pro sells the country to first time visitors. Four kinds of business had grown up inside one catalogue, and each of them sells something the others do not. None of it books the way a traveller expects.
Four businesses, one catalogue
The catalogue holds restaurants and experiences alongside tours and events. A table for two and a three day tour are not the same product, and a system that treats them alike serves neither.
The booking is a request, not a confirmation
A traveller who books an experience is not booked yet. The host accepts first, and only then does money move. Every competitor has spent a decade teaching travellers the opposite, so the difference had to be built into the flow.
Cancellation is not one policy
Cancelling a restaurant table is not the same decision as cancelling a multi day tour. Each listing type needed terms of its own. What a traveller gets back has to follow the rules attached to the thing they booked.
Two kinds of host, priced the same
Hosts are not interchangeable, and the client did not want to charge them as though they were. A host sits on the regular tier or the pro tier, and the difference is earned rather than bought. Performance has to be judged continuously, because a badge somebody awards by hand does not scale.
The catalogue spoke two languages
Travellers arrive from every part of the world, and the catalogue met them in Japanese and English. Hosts add listings continuously, so a translation round somebody has to schedule falls behind the week it is finished. Anything manual leaves most of the catalogue unreadable.
AI, with no map of where it belonged
The client knew AI had a part to play here and could not say which part. That is the point at which most projects bolt a chatbot onto a homepage and call it done. The risk was spending the budget on the visible thing rather than the paying one.
What we built
We spent the first part of the engagement deciding where AI belonged, then built the platform around the answer. The answers run in the order the problems were listed.
One spine, four sets of rules
Every listing shares one core the platform understands. Anything that differs by type sits alongside the core rather than being buried inside it. A table for two and a three day tour behave differently without the product forking in two.
The host is a step, not a notification
A request goes to the host and the traveller sees a state that says so. Money is taken when the host accepts and not before. The interface names the pending step plainly, because a traveller trained on instant confirmation will assume they are booked otherwise.
Cancellation terms belong to the listing type
The terms are configuration and not code. Each type carries its own, and the refund is computed from the rule attached to the booking rather than one policy the whole site shares.
A tier that is earned and lost
Regular and pro are the two tiers, and the platform decides which a host is on. Performance is monitored as the work happens rather than reviewed in a meeting, so a host moves up or back down on their own record. Commission and communication preferences both follow the tier. The design was ours and the client took it.
Translation on submission, not on a schedule
A listing is translated as it arrives. Twelve languages, in under three minutes, with each field handled on its own so a structured listing stays structured. Nobody schedules a translation round and nobody chases one.
Search that reads meaning, not keywords
Listings are indexed as vectors, so a traveller who describes the day they want finds things that never used those words. Claude does the reading where the judgement matters. The map came before any of the building, and the client agreed to all of it.
What changed
The platform sells to a traveller in their own language and settles with a host on terms that match what they actually offer.
Twelve languages, from one submission
A host writes once, in Japanese or English. The listing is live in twelve languages inside three minutes, and the catalogue never falls behind itself.
A booking model the hosts already trusted
The host accepts before any money moves, which is how these businesses have always worked. Nothing about the platform asked them to change that in order to be listed on it.
Commission that keeps pace with the host
Tiers move without anybody being asked to move them. A host who improves pays a rate that reflects it, and nobody at Japan Pro has to arbitrate who deserves what.
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