Development of Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application for Foreign Tourists Visiting Japan

Tomoyuki Ishida1∗ , Tsubasa Ando1, Noriki Uchida2, and Yoshitaka Shibata3 1Ibaraki University, Hitachi, Ibaraki 3168511 Japan {tomoyuki.ishida.49, 15nm701x}@vc.ibaraki.ac.jp 2Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Fukuoka, Fukuoka 811-0295, Japan n-uchida@ﬁt.ac.jp 3Iwate Prefectural University, Takizawa, Iwate 0200693 Japan [email protected]

Abstract Many foreign tourists visit in Japan every year. On the other hand, multilingualization of signs such as guide plates and road signs, etc. is an important issue. The reinforcement of multilingualization is essential to improve the degree of satisfaction of the foreign tourists. Therefore, we focused on correspondence to foreigner tourists in a zoo, and constructed the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Ap- plication for foreign tourists visiting Japan. The Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application consists of the Animal Contents Registration System and the Animal Contents Browsing System. The An- imal Contents Registration System is the system to register Anglicized animal data in a zoo. And, the Animal Contents Browsing System is the system for the foreign tourists to browse Anglicized contents on the smartphone. In this research, in order to evaluate the necessity, the effectiveness, the operability, the functionality, the applicability and the readability of research, the questionnaire survey was carried out to foreigners. As questionnaire survey result, we were able to conﬁrm the great evaluation in all the items. In the future, we will rope after utilization at other tourist facilities based on the questionnaire survey results.

Keywords: Tourism-Oriented Country, Foreign Tourists, Tourist Application, Augmented Reality

1 Introduction

Japanese Government carried out tourism nation promotion basic law in January, 2007. Tourism was placed as a pillar of the Japanese important policy in the 21st century in this law [5]. Furthermore, tourism nation promotion basic plan was decided by the cabinet in March, 2012 based on tourism nation promotion basic law [6]. ”Expand Utilization of Tourism” and ”Quality Improvement of Tourism” are uphold in this basic plan. The number of foreign visitors to Japan of 2014 exceeded 13,000,000 people, and it was increased about 30 percent more than 2013 years [11]. The reinforcement and promotion of multilingualization are essential to improvement of civic power from these things. Japan Tourism Agency developed “Guideline for Improvement and Reinforcement to multilingualization toward the Tourism Nation” in March, 2014 [4]. This guideline present a common policy in each ﬁeld through the eyes of foreigner in art museum, history museum, nature park, tourist spot, road, and public transporta- tion, etc.. On the other hand, Japan National Tourism Organization released ”Investigative Report on Inconvenience and Dissatisfaction Foreign Tourists felt while traveling in Japan” in 2009. The biggest reason that foreign tourists felt inconvenience and dissatisfaction while traveling in Japan is ”lack of

IT CoNvergence PRActice (INPRA), volume: 3, number: 3 (September 2015), pp. 18-35 ∗Corresponding author: Department of of Computer and Information Sciences, Ibaraki University, 4121 Nakanarusawacho, Hitachi, Ibaraki, 3168511, Japan, Tel: +81-294-38-5138

18 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata foreign language display in signs (guide plates, road signs, and maps)” [10]. For this reason, foreign tourists are strongly hoping for correspondence to foreign languages of each sign. In the followings, the correspondence to foreigner tourists in a zoo is explained in section 2. The purpose of this research and system conﬁguration are explained in section 3 and section 4, respectively. The prototype system of the Animal Contents Registration System and the Animal Contents Browsing System is described in section 5. The questionnaire survey results are described in section 6. Finally, the conclusion and future work are summarized in section 7.

2 Correspondence to Foreigner Tourists in a Zoo

Each guide plate and brochure correspond to a foreign language at the sightseeing spots and the large scale leisure facilities. Furthermore, there are also facilities where audio guide service of a foreign language is introduced. For example, the official website in Ueno zoo many foreigner tourists visit every year corresponds to 8 languages in addition to Japanese. Additionally, guide plates and brochures in Ueno zoo correspond to English, Chinese and Korean [3]. On the other hand, many Japanese zoos have many issues such as aging facilities, decrease of the number of visitors, and financial difficulties [9, 7, 12]. In this kind of environment, it is very difficult to prepare each guide plate and brochure in a zoo which corresponds to several foreign languages. However, it is lead to tourism promotion and regional vitalization to prepare each guide plate and brochure which correspond to several foreign languages in consideration of foreign tourists needs. Therefore, we investigated correspondence to foreign tourists targeted for Kamine zoo in Hitachi city, Ibaraki prefecture. Kamine zoo opened in 1957. 4 kinds of animal such as Indian peafowls was exhibited in those days. About 70 kinds of animal is exhibited at present. About 300,000 people a year visit in Kamine zoo (Figure 1) [2, 8].

Figure 1: Kamine Zoo

The ofﬁcial website of Kamine zoo corresponds to English, Chinese and Korean in addition to

19 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

Japanese at present. However, each guide plate and brochure in Kamine zoo correspond to only Japanese as shown in Figure 2. Therefore, the foreign tourists who visited Kamine zoo can not get proﬁle information such as the hypocorism, the birthday, the character, and the feed etc. of animals.

Figure 2: Guide Plate in Kamine Zoo

3 Purpose of This Research

Each guide plate and brochure in Kamine zoo are not multilingualization as discussed in the prior section. However, it will require many costs to multilingualization of all guide plates and brochures in Kamine zoo. Therefore, we construct the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application for foreign tourists who visited in Kamine zoo. We Anglicize all guide plates in Kamine zoo, and create electronic data at the beginning. And we Anglicizing targeted for all animal guide plates. Next, we register the computerized each guide plate from the Animal Contents Registration System. The Animal Contents Registration System is the web system, and can register electronic data on the map. The data registrant can select the arbitrary position on the map of the Animal Contents Registration System, and upload electronic data easily. Details of the Animal Contents Registration System are described at chapter 5.1. Electronic data of all guide plates registered from the Animal Contents Registration System becomes possible to browse on the Animal Contents Browsing System. The Animal Contents Browsing System is smartphone application for iOS. The foreign tourists who visited Kamine zoo can browse various information of all animals indicated as AR on this Animal Contents Browsing System. The foreign tourists can acquire Anglicized animal information by tapping AR contents on the Animal Contents Browsing System. Details of the Animal Contents Browsing System are described at chapter 5.2. We can provide the multilingualization contents for foreign tourists at low cost by this research. Additionally, the foreign tourists who visited Kamine zoo can get Anglicized contents easily through the exclusive smartphone application.

20 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

4 System Conﬁguration and System Architecture

The system conﬁguration of this research is shown in Figure 3. This system consists of the Animal Contents Management Agent, the Animal Contents Browsing Agent, the Animal Contents Application Server, and the Animal Contents Database Server. Digital data of this system is registered in the Animal Contents Database Server by the Animal Contents Management Agent (ofﬁcials in a zoo). And, the Animal Contents Browsing Agent (foreign visitors in a zoo) browse registered digital data.

(A) The Animal Contents Management Agent The Animal Contents Management Agent can register various digital data related to animals using the Animal Contents Registration System of next section. Registered contents are stored in the Animal Contents Database Server through the Animal Contents Application Server.

(B) The Animal Contents Browsing Agent The Animal Contents Browsing Agent can browse various digital data using the Animal Contents Browsing System of smartphone application. The Animal Contents Browsing System indicates digital data as AR.

(C) The Animal Contents Application Server The Animal Contents Application Server registers digital contents to the Animal Contents Database Server according to the request of the Animal Contents Management Agent. And, this application server provides digital contents to the Animal Contents Browsing Agent from the Animal Contents Database Server.

(D) The Animal Contents Database Server Registered digital contents are stored by the Animal Contents Management Agent in the Animal Contents Database Server through the Animal Contents Application Server. Related movies, pictures, and text ﬁles, etc. are stored in this database server.

Figure 3: System Conﬁguration

21 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

5 Prototype System

Our implemented prototype system is described in this section. In this system, animal contents administrator has to register digital contents using the Animal Contents Registration System in advance to provide the profile information of animals for foreign tourists. In this research, the animal contents administrator is officials in a zoo. The animal contents administrator can register various digital contents such as movies, pictures, PDF files, and presentation files, etc. The animal contents browsing user can browse registered various digital contents on the exclusive the Animal Contents Browsing System. In this research, the animal contents browsing users are foreign tourists who visited a zoo.

5.1 The Animal Contents Registration System

The system screen for officials in a zoo to register animal contents is shown in Figure 4. The animal contents administrator selects the position of the animal contents registered on Google Maps [1] of Figure 4. Next, the animal contents administrator uploads the animal contents through the Animal Contents Ap- plication Server using the upload function. Uploaded animal contents are stored in the Animal Contents Database Server. At the same time, registered animal contents are indicated as pins on Google Maps. When the animal contents administrator clicks a pin on Google Maps, it is possible to confirm the data information (the file name and the registration time and date) of registered animal contents. Moreover, when registering a lot of animal contents with the same position, the animal contents administrator can use the group management function. The group management function creates the folder for the animal contents administrator to register a lot of animal contents with the same position. The animal contents administrator can register a lot of files with the same position at one time by using this function.

Figure 4: The Animal Contents Registration System

22 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

The sequence of the Animal Contents Registration System is shown in Figure 5. When the user accessed application from a web browser, Web App accesses Google and acquires data of Google Maps. Next, the user can manage contents by selecting an arbitrary position on the map. An operational order is sent to Application Server from Web App. Application Server operates a directory in the server and DB Server and registers uploaded contents information. Then, Web App reﬂects the registration contents on Google Map.

Figure 5: The sequence of the Animal Contents Registration System

An example of the actual animal contents registered using the Animal Contents Registration System is shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7. Figure 6 is registered basic information contents of an elephant. This system provides the animal name, the scientiﬁc name, the taxonomy, the distribution, and the attribute information in basic information contents.

Figure 6: Registered Content (Basic Information of Animal)

23 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

Figure 7 is profile information of an elephant. This system provides the hypocorism, the birthday, the admission to Kamine zoo, and the character information of animals in profile information contents. Profile information of animals makes foreign tourists hold intimacy to animals. Foreign tourists feel an affinity with animals by profile information.

Figure 7: Registered Content (Proﬁle Information of Animal)

Latitude and longitude information of registered animal contents is shown in Table 1. In this research, we registered 62 animal basic information contents. Moreover, we registered 45 animal proﬁle information contents. When the foreign tourists browse animal contents using the smartphone application of the next chapter, several meters of GPS (Global Positioning System) positioning error occurs. Therefore, we conﬁrmed that it is a GPS positioning error within the allowable limits by browsing all registered animal contents using the smartphone application.

Table 1: Latitude and Longitude of Registered Animal Contents

No. Animal Name Registered Latitude Registered Longitude 01 Asian Elephant 36.608399 140.658983 02 American Red Squirrel 36.606297 140.659132 03 Asian Small Clawed Otter 36.606244 140.659211 04 Black-tailed Prairie Dog 36.606345 140.659231 05 Japanese Raccoon Dog 36.606390 140.659275 06 Capybara 36.606194 140.659278 07 Crested Porcupine 36.606245 140.659333 08 Masked Palm Civet 36.606289 140.659396 09 Common Raccoon 36.606341 140.659440 10 Donkey 36.606618 140.659375 11 African Spurred Tortoise 36.606606 140.659344 12 Siba Goat 36.606581 140.659325 13 Pig (Pot-belly) 36.606563 140.659309 14 Midget Horse 36.606550 140.659286

24 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

No. Animal Name Registered Latitude Registered Longitude 15 Humboldt Penguin 36.606737 140.659241 16 Temminck’s Cormorant 36.606836 140.659013 17 Red Kangaroo 36.606717 140.659501 18 Laughing Kookaburra 36.606754 140.659608 19 Sika Deer 36.607124 140.659884 20 Japanese Badger 36.607228 140.659694 21 Mara Patagonian Cavy 36.607281 140.659746 22 Chimpanzee 36.606997 140.659155 23 Bolivian Squirrel Monkey 36.607066 140.658785 24 Tufted Capuchin 36.607181 140.658712 25 Mandrill 36.607162 140.658680 26 De Brazza’s Monkey 36.607179 140.658650 27 Burmese Python 36.607182 140.658627 28 Cotton-Top Tamarin 36.607198 140.658596 29 Common Marmoset 36.607186 140.658578 30 Black-Handed Spider Monkey 36.607196 140.658668 31 Savannah Monkey 36.607271 140.658954 32 Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur 36.607307 140.659049 33 White-Handed Gibbon 36.607305 140.659079 34 Ring-Tailed Lemur 36.607308 140.659128 35 Aabyssinia Colobus 36.607299 140.659160 36 Lion-Tailed Macaque 36.607300 140.659183 37 Indian Peafowl 36.607617 140.659635 38 Japanese Bantam 36.608603 140.659658 39 Silky Fowl 36.608581 140.659663 40 Silver Laced Polish 36.608516 140.659693 41 Japanese Crane 36.607814 140.659701 42 Chilean Flamingo 36.608211 140.659668 43 Himalayan Monal Pheasant 36.608433 140.659731 44 Japanese Pheasant 36.608477 140.659707 45 Helmeted Guineafowl 36.608529 140.659687 46 Rock Eagle Owl 36.608543 140.659679 47 Hondo Ural Owl 36.608561 140.659671 48 Eastern Buzzard 36.608639 140.659646 49 Shetland Pony 36.608205 140.659031 50 Hartman’s Mountain Zebra 36.608394 140.659007 51 Domestic Duck 36.607927 140.658814 52 Muscovy Duck 36.607869 140.658857 53 America Beaver 36.608016 140.658773 54 Black Rhinoceros 36.608019 140.659058 55 Hippopotamus 36.607888 140.659352 56 Reticulated Giraffe 36.608545 140.659274 57 Lesser Panda 36.608864 140.659274 58 Japanese Macaqu 36.608786 140.658954 59 Bengal Tiger 36.608062 140.658590 60 Lion 36.607998 140.658570 61 Hokkaido Brown Bear 36.607868 140.658558 62 Japanese Black Bear 36.607692 140.658644 25 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

5.2 The Animal Contents Browsing System The opening screen of the Animal Contents Browsing System is shown in Figure 8. This system is smartphone application and corresponds to iOS devices. The AR screen which can browse various animal contents is displayed to tap a ”Enter” button of the opening screen. The AR screen of the Animal Contents Browsing System is shown in Figure 9. Animal contents are displayed on the camera image (real space) as three-dimensional objects. A compass on the AR screen indicates the direction user is facing. A ”SEARCH” button on the AR screen is the button to display three-dimensional objects of the animal contents which exist in the range of the camera image. All animal contents which exist in the range of the camera image are displayed as three-dimensional objects to tap this ”SEARCH” button. The three-dimensional objects displayed on middle of the AR screen are animal contents.

Figure 8: Opening Screen Figure 9: AR Screen

26 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

The file menu screen of the Animal Contents Browsing System is shown in Figure 10. The file menu screen is displayed by tapping the three-dimensional object which indicates animal contents on middle of the AR screen. The file name of the animal contents stored in the Animal Contents Database Server is displayed on top of the file menu screen. The contents browsing screen is displayed to tap a ”Open” button on the middle of the file menu screen. On the other hand, the contents browsing of a selected three-dimensional object is canceled to tap a ”Cancel” button. The contents browsing screen of the Animal Contents Browsing System is shown in Figure 11. In this research, we composed all animal contents in the PDF format. It is also possible to register digital data of the various formats such as the movie file, picture file, and the sound file in addition to this file format.

Figure 10: File Menu Screen Figure 11: Contents Browsing Screen

27 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

The sequence of the Animal Contents Browsing System is shown in Figure 12. When the user has started application, Smartphone App accesses Google and acquires data of Google Maps. At the same time, Smartphone App accesses Application Server and acquires contents around the user from DB Server. Then, the AR screen is displayed on the user’s application screen. When the user tapped a three-dimensional object on the AR screen, Smartphone App downloads contents from Application Server.

Figure 12: The sequence of the Animal Contents Browsing System

28 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

6 System Evaluation

In order to evaluate the necessity, the effectiveness, the operability, the functionality, the applicability and the readability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application, the questionnaire survey was carried out to 10 foreigners. The scene of the questionnaire survey is shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13: Questionnaire Survey in Kamine Zoo

The attribute of the subjects in the questionnaire survey is shown in Figure 14. 10 foreigners include 3 female and 7 male. And 10 foreigners include 4 Chinese and 6 Malayan. 10 subjects experienced the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application actually, and evaluated 6 items.

Figure 14: The Attribute of the Subjects

29 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

The necessity evaluation result of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application is shown in 15. We investigated necessity of providing contents of English version to foreign visitors using the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application in this item. About the necessity of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Appli- cation, 100 percent of the subject answered ”Necessary” or ”Somewhat necessary”. There was no one of the subject answered ”Somewhat unnecessary” or ”Unnecessary”. Therefore, we were able to conﬁrm the great necessity of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application by this questionnaire survey.

Figure 15: Questionnaire on the Necessity of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application

The effectiveness evaluation result of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application is shown in Figure 16. We investigated effectiveness of providing contents of English version to foreign visitors using the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application in this item. About the effectiveness of the Zoo Guide Smart- phone AR Application, 90 percent of the subject answered ”Effective” or ”Somewhat effective”. There was no one of the subject answered ”Somewhat ineffective” or ”Ineffective”. Therefore, we were able to conﬁrm the great effectiveness of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application by this questionnaire survey.

Figure 16: Questionnaire on the Effectiveness of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application

30 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

The operability evaluation result of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application is shown in Figure 17. We investigated the operational satisfaction level of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application in this item. About the operability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application, 30 percent of the subject answered ”Easy” or ”Somewhat easy”. However, 30 percent of the subject answered “Difﬁcult” or “Somewhat difﬁcult”. Therefore it is necessary to improve the operability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application.

Figure 17: Questionnaire on the Operability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application

The functionality evaluation result of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application is shown in Fig- ure 18. We investigated the satisfaction level of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application providing functions in this item. About the functionality of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application, 60 percent of the subject answered ”Satisfaction” or ”Somewhat satisfaction”. On the other hand, 10 percent of the subject answered ”Dissatisfaction”. Therefore, we were able to conﬁrm the great functionality of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application by this questionnaire survey.

Figure 18: Questionnaire on the Functionality of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application

31 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

The applicability evaluation result of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application is shown in Figure 19. We investigated the applicability to other ﬁelds of this application in this item. About the applicability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application, 90 percent of the subject answered ”Possible” or ”Somewhat possible”. There was no one of the subject answered ”Somewhat impossible” or ”Im- possible”. Therefore, we were able to conﬁrm the great applicability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application by this questionnaire survey.

Figure 19: Questionnaire on the Applicability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application

The readability evaluation result of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application is shown in Figure 20. We investigated readability of providing contents of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application in this item. About the readability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application, 70 percent of the subject answered ”Easy to understand” or ”Somewhat easy to understand”. However, 20 percent of the subject answered “Somewhat hard to understand”. Therefore it is necessary to improve the readability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application.

Figure 20: Questionnaire on the Readability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application

32 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

7 Conclusion and Future Work

In this paper, we introduced the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application. The Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application consists of the Animal Contents Registration System and the Animal Contents Browsing System. The Animal Contents Registration System is the system to register Anglicized animal data in a zoo. The data registrant can select the arbitrary position on the map of the Animal Contents Registration System, and register electronic data easily. The Animal Contents Browsing System is the system for the foreign tourists to browse Anglicized contents on the smartphone. The foreign tourists can acquire Anglicized animal information by tapping AR contents on the Animal Contents Browsing System. We carried out the questionnaire survey to the foreigners. We evaluated the necessity, the effectiveness, the operability, the functionality, the applicability and the readability of the Zoo Guide Smartphone AR Application. As a result, we were able to conﬁrm the great evaluation in all the items. We can provide the multilingualization contents for foreign tourists at low cost by using this system. Therefore we will grope after utilization at other tourist facilities from now on. For example, we assume utilize at the aquarium, the art museum, the temples and shrines, the world heritage, the history museum, the castle ruin, and the amusement park as shown in Figure 21. Additionally, we are planning to consider system construction which corresponds to the various languages such as Chinese, Korean and Spanish, etc.

Figure 21: Future Work

Acknowledgments

We would like to show my greatest appreciation to Mr. Namae of the head zookeeper at Kamine zoo whose comments and suggestions were of inestimable value for our research. Special thanks also go to Zoo ofﬁcials whose opinions and information have helped us very much throughout the production of this research.

33 Zoo Guide Smartphone AR App Ishida, Ando, Uchida, and Shibata

References

[1] Google maps. https://maps.google.co.jp, last viewed June 2015. [2] Kamine zoo. http://www.city.hitachi.lg.jp/zoo/, last viewed June 2015. [3] Ueno zoo. http://www.tokyo-zoo.net/zoo/ueno/, last viewed June 2015. [4] J. T. Agency, M. of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Guideline for improvement and reinforcement to multilingualization toward the tourism nation. http://www.mlit.go.jp/common/001029742. pdf, last viewed June 2015. [5] J. T. Agency, M. of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Tourism nation promotion basic law. http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/kankorikkoku/kihonhou.html, last viewed June 2015. [6] J. T. Agency, M. of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism. Tourism nation promotion basic plan. http://www.mlit.go.jp/kankocho/kankorikkoku/kihonkeikaku.html, last viewed June 2015. [7] S. C. C. Bureau. About the yagiyama zoo logical park administration policy -toward a zoo of one mil- lion people-. http://www.city.sendai.jp/kensetsu/yagiyama/pdf/houshin.pdf, last viewed June 2015. [8] H. City. Hitachi tourism promotion plan. http://www.city.hitachi.lg.jp/shisei/004/003/ p001222_d/fil/00001_20081127_0001.pdf, last viewed June 2015. [9] S. P. on Public Functions Promotion Method in the Zoos of the Botanical Gardens of the Ministry of the Environment. About the public functions promotion method in the zoos of the botanical gardens (2013 report). https://www.env.go.jp/nature/report/h26-01/main.pdf, last viewed June 2015. [10] J. N. T. Organizatio. Investigative report on inconvenience and dissatisfaction foreign tourists felt while traveling in japan. http://www.jnto.go.jp/jpn/downloads/20091029_TIC_attachement.pdf, last viewed June 2015. [11] J. N. T. Organization. Trend of the number of foreign visitors to japan. http://www.jnto.go.jp/jpn/ reference/tourism_data/visitor_trends/, last viewed June 2015. [12] K. Zoo. Kushiro zoo master plan. http://www.city.kushiro.lg.jp/common/000032102.pdf, last viewed June 2015.

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Author Biography

Tomoyuki Ishida received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Software and Information science from Iwate Prefectural University in 2004 and 2006, and Ph.D. degrees in the same University in 2010. Currently he is an assistant professor in the Ibaraki University. His research interests include Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Tele-Immersion, Web Geographic Information System, and Disaster Man- agement System. He is a member of IEEE, Virtual Reality Society of Japan (VRSJ), and Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ).

Tsubasa Ando received the B.S. degree in Engineering from Ibaraki University in 2014. Currently he is taking a master’s course at Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Ibaraki University. His research interests include Virtual Reality, Aug- mented Reality, Web Application System, Geographical Information System, and Wearable Computer System.

Noriki Uchida received the B.S. degrees from University of Tennessee in 1994, M.S. degrees in Software and Information science from Iwate Prefectural University in 2003, and Ph.D. degrees in the same University in 2011. Currently he is an asso- ciate professor in the Fukuoka Institute of Technology. His research interests include Cognitive Wireless Networks, QoS, and Heterogeneous Network. He is a member of IEEE, Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), and Institute of Electronic and Communication Engineering in Japan (IEICE).

Yoshitaka Shibata received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), U.S.A. in 1985. From 1985 to 1989, he was a research member in Bell Communication Research, U.S.A., where he was working in the area of high-speed information network and protocol design for multimedia information services. Since 1998, he is working for Iwate Prefectural University, Japan as an executive director of Media Center and a professor of Faculty of Software and Information Science in the same university. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, Informa- tion Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) and Institute of Electronic and Communication Engineering in Japan (IEICE).