Major Japanese wireless carriers recently launched a service to provide foreign tourists with disaster relief information via mobile phone short message service in the event of an earthquake or typhoon.
Three mobile phone service operators -- NTT Docomo Inc., KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Corp. -- began the service last Wednesday and will send information such as the number of a visitor hotline run by the Japan National Tourism Organization and the web address of NHK World-Japan, the multilingual broadcasting service, when a disaster occurs.
Messages will be written in English, Korean and simplified or traditional Chinese characters according to the user's domestic wireless carrier. Travelers will have to use a roaming service provided by one of the three Japanese carriers to receive them.
The introduction of the new service comes at a time when the estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan plunged to just 1,700 in May, an all-time low for the second consecutive month, due to travel restrictions imposed by Japan and many other countries to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
