What we are building

A short note about what we have been working on. There has been a lot going into the app and the website these past weeks, and there is one thing coming that we are more excited about than anything else we are building right now: hometown tax gifts.

The idea came from Saori, one of our partners. Thank you, Saori — this one is yours.

The idea is simple. Your municipality lists what you offer as a thank-you gift. Someone donates to the town, receives a code from you, books with us, and the code applies itself at checkout. You remain the registered supplier throughout — the relationship with your town stays entirely yours, and TabiTots is only where the booking happens.

Two ways to offer it

Which one fits depends on what you run.

① A programme gift — for one fixed thing. The town lists a single class of yours: one ballet class, for example. A donor picks it out of the catalogue, and the link you send them opens that exact class with the gift already applied. They choose a date, book, and pay nothing for it. This suits anything with a fixed shape — ballet, kintsugi, pottery, calligraphy, karate or kendo.

② A value coupon — for anything where the amount varies. The town lists a ¥3,000 childcare coupon. This is the one for childcare, after-school care, or hours at an international school, where one family needs a single morning and another needs a full week. A donor who gives ¥30,000 receives three codes and uses as many as they need on each booking — all three on one long day, or one at a time across three visits.

How it works for you

1. You set it up once — which class, or how much a coupon is worth.

2. A donation arrives, and you handle the portal exactly as you do today (出荷準備中).

3. You open TabiTots, press one button, and the codes come out ready to paste, with a link and a PDF you can attach.

4. You send your thank-you email, and set 配送完了 as usual.

5. The family books, and the discount applies by itself.

Applying a coupon usually means someone looking up a code by hand on every single booking. Here it happens on its own, the coupon is marked used the moment it is spent, and you can see at any time which codes are unused, used or expired — and download the whole list as a spreadsheet to send to your town.

We are building this now. It is not live yet, and we will write again when it is.

One thing would help

If your municipality runs a hometown tax programme, or you are already registered as a 返礼品提供事業者, just tell us — write to hello@tabitots.com. We will make sure you are among the first.

Yesterday one of our partners received our first real booking: a baby, two full days, 9:00 to 17:00, ¥33,000. A real parent who signed up herself, verified her ID and added her child. We jumped for joy. Now we are just hoping she does not cancel.

Since our first partner signed on 19 June, a little over a month ago, we are 19 partners — 11 childcare, 7 experiences, and one doing both. 16 are bookable right now.

A little while ago we wrote to some of our partners asking for help, without really knowing what we were asking for. What came back was far more than we hoped for, and from more of them than we expected: offers to hand out flyers, introductions to hotels and to travel agencies, Instagram posts in English, social-media promotion starting within days. We didn't expect any of it. Thank you.

What we are doing on our side

We started emailing hotels, ryokans, serviced apartments, vacation rentals, ski resorts and omiyage shops today. We think hotels will be our strongest channel — that is where traveling families already are. A DMC with ten years of experience, who has looked after more than a hundred thousand travelers in Japan, has approached us about a partnership, and we are talking with them now — nothing is agreed yet, but it opens doors we could not have knocked on ourselves. We are also looking at hiring street promoters who can talk to traveling families face to face, and Google Ads will come soon. Real advertising on Instagram and Facebook we have kept postponing — honestly, we do not feel confident enough yet to be seen by many people.

Three new things in the app

Chat. Families can now message you while you are still reviewing their request, not only after the booking is locked in. The venue address opens at the same moment. Everything still goes through TabiTots, so no personal contact details are exchanged.

First visit hello. If you prefer to meet a family before their first booking, you can now turn this on yourself. On the website console, open Preferences in the left menu, then First visit. In the app, open the Manage tab, then Preferences, then First visit. There you choose how long the hello is, whether it is in person or online, and the times you are free. A new family picks a slot when they book, and the booking is held until after you have met. You can still decline for two hours after the hello, and nothing is charged before it confirms. Families who have been to you before skip it.

Your website. We have added your own website address to your page, so families can see where to find you. It shows as text, not as a link.

What we are asking our partners

1. Do you know a business we could talk to? Someone told us that launching a company makes you thick-skinned, and they were right, because here we are asking again. If you know a place where a flyer could sit on a counter or a wall — a hotel, a shop, a guesthouse, anywhere traveling families pass through — would you pass this letter along? We give them 5% of the booking total for every family they send us.

2. Please check your listing — prices, times, ages, photos, what to bring, anything at all. It is easy for us to edit everything for you, so just tell us what to change.

3. Google Maps. Some partners don't have reviews there yet. Travelers, and foreign families living in Japan, lean on Google Maps almost completely — we do it ourselves before going anywhere. If you have families whose children already come to you, would you ask them to leave a review? Not about TabiTots, just about you. Even while our app is new and quiet, a family who finds you on Google Maps can see that real children have been in your care.

4. If there is something you use today that you think TabiTots should have, send us a screenshot and tell us. We are happy to build new features and we want this to be as good as it can be.

5. If something looks wrong, it is most likely a bug. Please tell us.

Where we are

Please use the website for now, not the mobile console. Its design is nearly finished and then it goes back to Apple and Google for approval, but until then it is not in a state we are proud of. The website is not finished either — the profile section especially — but it works, and we are improving it constantly. We are building website booking now, and Bokun is ready. The app is far from perfect, but it is bookable.

And if we have not replied to you yet, we are sorry. They say a baby doubles your workload, and we only have one, so we have no excuse. We are reading everything.

So many of our partners have introduced us to people they know, and those people have started introducing us further. We still have little to show, but yesterday's booking made it feel real. Thank you for being so generous with your time and your ideas.

The world is our oyster.