The famous flower viewing season in Kyoto just started this weekend. In order to attract a lot of tourists and help them find their way around in Kyoto, the Hyatt Regency Hotel introduced a new innovative service called ‘iPhone concierge service’.

The new iPhone 3G S, which Softbank just started selling in Japan on June 26th, is provided to all guests of the hotel free of rental charge. The phones comes with pre-installed apps, focusing on the flower season in Kyoto: event information, cultural background, tourist information and GPS navigation (the so called ‘hana nabi’ = flower navigation).

From now on the hotel doesn’t have to deal with all that time-consuming and bothersome requests from hundreds of (foreign) tourists and can also provide a more comfortable stay at their hotel. To enhance communication between groups of tourists, ‘Skype’ is installed on the devices. Also cheap national and international calls are available. ‘Around me’ and ‘Google Maps’ helps tourists find the way to the next bank or ATM, hotel or souvenir shop.

That’s a lot of high tech to explore the traditional Kyoto. For Softbank and the iPhone it’s great marketing, which will not only boost the brand awareness but also create local business and advertising possibilities. Respect!

source: flower tourism press release (PDF, Japanese)