The travel industry has evolved tremendously following the impact of COVID-19 and the opening of Japan's borders, leading small and medium-sized hotels to optimize their services.

In 2022, OYO Japan rebranded to Tabist, a hotel management company that offers unique travel experiences in Japan’s unique regions by digitally transforming lodging and other aspects of the hospitality industry. Tabist is working towards revitalizing the lodging industry by focusing on three key areas: maximizing guest visits, boosting sales for hotel owners, and optimizing hotel and Japanese-style inns (ryokan) services. To achieve this, Tabist strives to develop innovative ways to improve its operations.

Managing hotels involves various day-to-day operations such as handling customer bookings, front desk duties, managing occupancy and rates, processing payments, and more. To provide a unique and optimal experience for hotel staff and customers, Tabist aims to develop a comprehensive Property Management Software (PMS) that integrates all hotel management operations into a single digital platform. Alongside this, Tabist aims to revamp its booking site and develop a mobile booking app. This innovative digital approach ensures that all hotel management tasks and customer experiences are streamlined and more efficient.

As their trusted IT partner, Tokyo Techies developed and designed their new property management system, revamped their booking site, and developed their mobile booking app. Tokyo Techies team also　performed seamless data migration from their legacy systems to the new systems, provided comprehensive quality assurance and robust cybersecurity support, and ensured the security and scalability of the platform with utmost confidence.

Tokyo Techies and the Tabist team worked closely together to design and develop a new property management system, mobile app, and booking site that would be well-received by their hotel staff and guests. By communicating and collaborating closely, Tokyo Techies was able to involve the Tabist team in every step of the process and work towards creating a system that met their needs and expectations.

In just over a year, Tokyo Techies developed a robust property management system with a comprehensive API, ensuring seamless integration with third-party software. The new system featured an advanced and secure cloud infrastructure capable of zero-downtime deployment and optimized for scalability. Tokyo Techies was also able to migrate data seamlessly from their legacy systems and provided comprehensive quality assurance, as well as conducted penetration testing as a part of cybersecurity support. Tabist's revamped booking site and mobile app have a top-notch user-friendly design and experience that is connected to Tabist's new property management system.

Thoughtful UX research and UI design

Tokyo Techies interviewed the Tabist team to better understand the current pain points with the existing systems, particularly the heavy users of the current property management system. This proactive approach helped to create a more efficient and effective system that met the requirements of the Tabist team. After gathering critical insights, the Tokyo Techies team quickly went to strategize and look for ways to improve the new property management system and incorporate these insights into the design concepts. To ensure that the design met Tabist's expectations, Tokyo Techies sought feedback from Tabist via tools like Figma and Slack for a quicker iteration process. The result was an aesthetically pleasing system with an intuitive user experience that the Tabist team loves.

Successful data migration and integration

Tabist already had an existing property management system for their day-to-day operations. Aside from the development of the new system, Tokyo Techies team was also tasked with migrating data from their existing system to the new system that Tokyo Techies team built.

Tokyo Techies team had to ensure the data migration was performed seamlessly while integrating the new system with a third-party application, per Tabist's specific requirements and within the given timeframe. The migration process was rather complex, as Tokyo Techies team did not have direct access to the database for privacy reasons, requiring them to use their best expertise to ensure successful data migration. Ultimately, Tokyo Techies team successfully carried out the migration of all the data from an extremely complex system to the new system, all within the project timeline.

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Ensuring the quality and security of systems and software

To ensure the quality and security of complex software such as a property management system, mobile booking app, and booking site, Tokyo Techies team rapidly developed and tested the system according to the design concepts. Tokyo Techies also provided quality control and pentest support after every update was made to the current systems to ensure their security. Regular cyber security audits were also held periodically and with every new update made to the systems.
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