After the experience, visitors can try their hand at “gakacha-gacha,” a machine that offers a chance to win a free night at a luxury hotel or hot spring inn in Japan or abroad for 500 yen per visit (31 pairs of 62 people will be selected as winners). Even if you do not win, you will get a shopping panda doll.
At the Rakuten Travel booth, visitors will be able to experience a simulated experience through photography and exhibits on each theme, such as “hot springs,” “luxury accommodations,” “theme parks,” “Korea,” and “Hawaii,” and will receive coupons for use at Rakuten Travel by answering a questionnaire.
At the exhibition hall, called Future Festival, visitors can experience various services such as Rakuten Travel and Rakuten Mobile, as well as enjoy popular gourmet foods from Rakuten Ichiba and Rakuten Furusato tax returns.
Astronaut Soichi Noguchi discusses diversity and space travel
On August 3, the second day of the conference, Yoshiyuki Takano, Senior Executive Officer, Vice President of Commerce & Marketing Company and General Manager of Travel & Mobility Business Division, Rakuten Group, and Soichi Noguchi, Astronaut and Representative of Future Sphere, discussed “Diversity and Team Building”. Discussion was held on the theme of “Diversity and Team Building.
Mr. Takano commented, “When it comes to the travel business, we are in an industry where we have to expand inbound travel, accept foreign workers, and work with the idea of diversity in various ways. However, few Japanese actually understand the effects of diversity,” he said, and asked Mr. Noguchi for his opinion on whether he, as an astronaut, sees the importance and effects of diversity.
Mr. Noguchi said, “Essentially, diversity is one solution for responding to the changing times. Diversity is not an end, but a means. If the times have always remained the same and we can use the same issues and business models as we did 10 years ago, then there is no need for so much diversity. In the travel industry, if most of the annual sales end up in company travel and the daily meals are the same as they were 10 years ago, then perhaps a single team doing the same thing over and over again would be efficient. The subject is when there are changes in the market, in the clientele, or in their own team itself, and the complexity is increasing and becoming more ambiguous, a diverse team is better than a single team to respond in such a situation,” he pointed out.
He recalls that initially, the emphasis was on the ability to fly fast fighter jets, but as times changed and astronauts were given more diverse tasks, such as conducting difficult scientific experiments on the International Space Station, NASA began to emphasize diversity.
Nevertheless, diversification in form alone does not produce results, so Mr. Takano introduced the stages of organizational growth in the Tuckman model.
Mr. Noguchi explained that of the four stages of “Formative Phase,” “Confusion Phase,” “Unification Phase,” and “Functional Phase,” the second stage, the Confusion Phase, “What is important is bottom-up. It is important that team members are able to speak up and that the leader listens to them. This is a process that generates small disputes, and the leader in particular may be disliked. Japanese people have a bias of not wanting to be disliked. We need to have the courage to be willing to be disliked,” he advises.
The conversation turned to the design of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, on which Mr. Noguchi also flew. Mr. Noguchi said, “Consultants often say that what was important in the 1960s and 1970s was craftsmanship (manufacturing), but after that it was science, and the era became science-oriented, with people getting MBAs and being able to do a lot of calculations. Now, America is an art world, and if you don’t understand art, you can’t lead a business. The first thing is whether or not the product is intuitively beautiful and makes you want to wear it to space. The cockpit, the rocket capsule, etc., all look like concept models from a motor show, and it was interesting that SpaceX would go to space with something that makes you want to say, “I can’t go to space in this way, can I?
Finally, Mr. Takano asked Mr. Noguchi if the time will come when ordinary people will be able to travel in space as if they were going on an overseas trip. Mr. Noguchi replied, “There is the issue of safety and the issue of supply and demand. Fortunately, there have been no fatal accidents in the past 20 years, and I think it will become a relatively safe vehicle. Then there is the price. It depends on how much it costs and how many people are going to ride it, which right now is in the billions and billions, but air travel has come to the hands of the general public through such changes in the first place. The day when we can travel to space is just around the corner,” he answered.
Mr. Takano concluded the discussion by saying that he would like to handle the program through Rakuten Travel when it is realized.
© Source travel watch
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