NAVER Strengthens Local Restaurant Reservation Service in Japan as Reservation Clicks Surge 5.8 Times in One Year

75,000 Japanese Restaurants Now Support Reservations
"We Will Continue to Expand Reservation-Linked Restaurants"

As the number of visitors to Japan has surged each year, the number of users of NAVER’s local restaurant search and reservation integration service—launched last year in partnership with Tabelog, Japan’s largest restaurant information platform—has also recorded significant growth.

NAVER established a partnership with Tabelog last year and is now providing information for approximately 750,000 restaurants in major Japanese cities by linking data with its Places service. For some of these restaurants, users can access real-time reservations by being redirected to Tabelog directly from NAVER.

When users click the 'Tabelog Reservation' button, which appears alongside Japanese restaurant information within NAVER Places, they are connected to Tabelog’s reservation page. As of last month, the number of users who clicked the reservation button linking from NAVER Places to Tabelog had increased by about 482% compared to August of last year, when this function was first released.

Particularly during periods when interest in travel to Japan is high—such as Christmas and winter vacation in December, and Japan’s Golden Week in May—reservation clicks increased by 111% and 50%, respectively, compared to the previous month, confirming a sharp rise in demand for exploring and booking popular restaurants in Japan during these seasons.

In the initial phase of the Tabelog integration, most reservation clicks originated from integrated search. However, last month, 76% of reservation click traffic came from users navigating through detailed place pages. In line with growing user interest in Japanese restaurant search and reservation services via Tabelog integration, NAVER plans to expand the scope of local restaurant Place information that supports reservation connections.

As of September, the number of local Japanese restaurants that actually support reservation connections had increased by 12.7% compared to the beginning of this year, reaching around 75,000 establishments.

NAVER is also in discussions to further integrate reservation features with other major local restaurant platforms in Japan, such as Gurunavi, to enable users to search and make reservations across more Japanese restaurants. In addition, NAVER plans to conduct beta testing within the year to allow users to explore Japanese regions on NAVER Map as they would in Korea, check Place information for restaurants connected with Tabelog, and for some of these restaurants, proceed to make reservations, thus further expanding the scope of connected restaurant Place information.

Choi Jihoon, Head of NAVER Places Search, stated, "Going forward, we will continue to enhance NAVER's Japanese local attraction search and reservation functionalities, so that users can enjoy trips to Japan as conveniently as traveling within Korea, using only NAVER."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.