NAVER Partners with Tabelog; Users Clicking to Reserve Japanese Restaurants Rise 5.8-Fold in a Year

[Financial News] As the number of visitors to Japan continues to rise each year, the number of users of NAVER's service for discovering local Japanese restaurants and connecting to reservation platforms has also grown significantly. The service was launched last year through NAVER's partnership with Tabelog, Japan's largest restaurant information platform. NAVER also plans to enhance its features for discovering and reserving information about local attractions in Japan, including by expanding the range of restaurant Place listings linked to the service.
According to industry sources on the 22nd, NAVER partnered with Tabelog last year and now provides information on nearly 750,000 restaurants in major Japanese cities through data integration with its Place service. For some restaurants, users can also move directly to Tabelog to make real-time reservations.
Clicking the 'Tabelog Reservations' button displayed on Japanese restaurant listings in Naver Place takes users to Tabelog's reservation page. As of August this year, the number of users who clicked reservation buttons linking from Naver Place to Tabelog had increased by approximately 482% compared with August last year, when the feature was first introduced.
During periods when interest in travel to Japan rises, such as Christmas and winter vacation in December and Golden Week in May, reservation clicks increased by 111% and 50%, respectively, from the previous month.
In the early stages of the Tabelog integration, most reservation-click traffic came through integrated search. Last month, however, clicks generated while browsing Place detail pages accounted for 76% of all reservation-click traffic. This suggests that users visiting Japan are actively searching for nearby restaurants with the intention of actually dining there and are even attempting to make reservations.
NAVER plans to continue expanding the number of local restaurant Place listings in Japan that can be linked to reservations.
As of September, the number of local Japanese restaurants connected to reservation services stood at approximately 75,000, up 12.7% from the beginning of the year.
NAVER is continuing discussions with various local companies, including Gurunavi, another major Japanese restaurant platform, to add more Japanese restaurant integrations that connect users from discovery through reservation.
In addition, NAVER plans to beta-test within the year an expansion of its restaurant Place data integration. This would allow users to explore areas in Japan on NAVER Map in the same way they browse domestic locations, view restaurant Place listings linked to Tabelog, and make reservations at some of those restaurants.
[email protected] Jang Min-kwon Reporter