TradFit has been recognized by APAC CIOOutlook Magazine as the recipient of “Top Cognitive Solutions Companies,” based on our proprietary methodology, reflecting its position in the industry. This profile has been developed by the APAC CIOOutlook research and editorial team based on insights from an interview with Yoshiki Toda, Founder, CEO.

TradFit
Transforming Hospitality with Intelligent Applications

Yoshiki Toda, Founder, CEO

Tourism and hospitality have always gone hand in hand, bringing revenue-generating opportunities and an assured boost to a region's economy. As an industry that operates all year round, the recent COVID-19 pandemic severely affected the tourism and hospitality sector. The global coronavirus outbreak introduced a shortage of hospitality personnel, leading to disruptions in operations and efficiency. This is now pushing the industry toward retaining its existing workforce by implementing technology that can upskill personnel and alleviate the pandemic-driven work pressure. Among the plethora of tech-driven solutions, those powered by AI are at the forefront of assisting different industries, including the tourism and hospitality industry, in lowering operational costs and delivering intelligent and personalized services.

Leading the pack of intelligent tourism and hospitality solutions with its AI, voice, and IoT-driven technologies is TradFit. The company's portfolio is geared toward improving the operations of accommodation facilities and guests' experience. TradFit's SaaS-based applications use AI speakers and offer AI-powered multilingual chat systems to boost hotel profitability and customer experience. Above all, TradFit's solutions and applications can enhance hospitality services, promote marketing endeavors, and ensure better work-life balance for employees.

The AI Solutions

At the heart of TradFit's unmatched capabilities is its extensive portfolio of patented, AI-driven technologies. The patents include smart travel, smart room control, automatic robot transportation, and multilingual chatbots, all named after their core function. One of TradFit's proprietary offerings is the Smart Travel technology, which is designed for avid travelers and provides information on restaurants, tourist attractions, or activities as per user preferences. Another key patent is the Smart Room Control technology that allows travelers to optimize room temperature and lighting by accepting requests from AI speakers. These patents cover all the central systems that hotels in Japan, other Asian countries, the EU, and the U.S use.

Besides its transformative B2C applications in the tourism and hospitality space, TradFit's advanced technology and AI drive B2B benefits by enhancing revenue-generating opportunities through impactful digital transformation. A key benefit of the company's B2B-driven applications is its ability to automate hotelier tasks such as inventory management, thereby saving costs and instances of excess inventory.

Leveraging its technologies, TradFit allows hotels to focus on providing hospitality amenities personalized to unique guest requests without being overwhelmed by inquiries. For instance, the guests can request room service and receive recommendations for popular facilities and services inside and outside a hotel through TradFit. The company also facilitates contactless voice operations via its human-machine interface (HMI), which combines human responses with proprietary AI to allow the accurate recording and efficient execution of special requests from guests.

The company also installs 'management screens' across all rooms in its clients' hotels. These screens can streamline operations such as food and beverage orders from guests and delivery of guidance services, thereby minimizing the impacts of workforce shortages and facilitating multilingual support within lodging facilities.

"Our ability to provide features, like automated translation, has led to inquiries from several regions. Even people in countries with low literacy rates can access travel information, leveling the playing field for tourists worldwide. In addition, our solutions are not only enhancing the hospitality and user satisfaction, but also creating business opportunities, increasing revenues, and reducing cost for accommodation facilities," explains Yoshiki Toda, CEO at TradFit.

TradFit's AI speaker-driven delivery enables users to access FAQs easily, search for restaurants, get directions to nearby attractions, and control electronics in their rooms in a contactless manner. Alternately, if the content of a conversation is not in the database or if the AI cannot respond to the scope or comprehend the language, a QR code is displayed, which can be scanned to activate the multilingual chat system (available in 16 languages). These capabilities are found in TradFit's 'concierge applications' and 'chat concierge system' for tourist and lodging facilities. Since the service is voice-operated, it can also prevent the spread of contagions through a non-contact, hands-free, and remote service for guests and staff.

TradFit enables hoteliers to better understand their guests with its data acquisition process that collects information and translates it into multiple languages. The consolidated data is also run through AI and ML tools to facilitate predictive marketing by converting vast unstructured datasets into actionable insights. The information is then used to extract the characteristics and demographics of people from different countries before TradFit's AI performs DL to deliver personalized marketing and geography-specific services.

Supporting Travelers with Advanced Technologies

Currently, numerous players in the market are trying to provide translation services to businesses. Unlike its contemporaries, the way TradFit has positioned itself is remarkable—by accumulating large volumes of guests' voice data, the company has rapidly improved hospitality services for foreign nationals. In addition, TradFit's dominant position and strong tie-ups with major domestic and global businesses such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft enable it to leverage vast AI speaker development know-how in conjunction with intuitive natural language processing (NLP) capabilities. Apart from this, TradFit's services are backed by a versatile team of industry specialists with speech recognition, NLP, ML, and deep learning (DL) expertise, which further strengthens its products.

Our ability to provide features, including automated translation, have led to inquiries from several regions. Even people in countries with low literacy rates can access travel information, leveling the playing field for tourists worldwide. In addition, our solutions are not only enhancing the hospitality and user satisfactions, but also creating business opportunities, increasing revenues, and reducing cost for accommodation facilities

Revolutionizing AI-powered Solutions for the Future

In an era where the tourism and hospitality industry is seeking innovative avenues to return to its former glory, TradFit is offering a SaaS-based B2B and B2C service capable of delivering a safe, contact-less, and digital transformation-driven experience for hoteliers and hotel guests alike. At the same time, the company's vertical SaaS nature reduces the reliance on third-party subsidies and simplifies horizontal expansion. TradFit's AI, combined with its partnership network of technology experts and customer channels, also addresses the burgeoning labor shortages with its original translation and concierge services.

Moving forward with such unparalleled competencies, TradFit plans to expand into other sectors like healthcare, FinTech, automotive (MaaS applications), and smart cities. In the FinTech arena, the company is leveraging its status as a firm adopted by leading programs such as Google for Startups and Microsoft for Startups to accelerate the expansion of Web 3.0 applications (Blockchain, NFT, DAO, and Metaverse) in existing and emerging business models in the near future. From a geographical standpoint, TradFit aims to capture a large share of the Japanese market and expand to markets in other Asian countries, including the EU, and the U.S. Furthermore, with its influential patents and collaboration with major domestic and foreign companies, TradFit holds the potential to solve the challenges in multiple industries and continues to provide innovative solutions that create value for all.

"Under our inspiring and creative company culture, engineers are encouraged to handle cutting-edge technologies such as voice interfaces, natural language processing solutions, and HMI technologies to deliver products of excellence," says Toda.

With TradFit's ability to provide hospitality services powered by proprietary technologies and innovative NLP, the company is receiving numerous inquiries from the Japanese hospitality sector and the global tourism industry at large. Today, as inbound tourism slowly returns to its former glory, the company is perfectly poised to optimize hospitality services and support hotels worldwide in capitalizing on the imminent opportunities.