Tokyo, October 2, 2017 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced the launch of a multilingual speech translation service that supports communication at airports, hotels, department stores and other facilities serving international visitors to Japan.

With the use of a high precision translation engine developed by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), this service provides support designed for the service industry in Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean languages. A single unit comfortably enables two-way conversation by quickly and conveniently displaying text translations.

Moreover, the service builds a database of information based on user conversations in order to provide reports on what inquiries were handled at what times. This helps to understand the interests of international visitors and the challenges they encounter throughout a wide range of situations, thereby helping to enhance overall hospitality.

In addition to a service app that works on smartphones and tablets, NEC is also providing a dedicated compact terminal for business use in order to ensure that the service can be used throughout a comprehensive range of business scenarios.

"In recent years, the number of international visitors to Japan has been on the rise. The Japanese government has set a goal of reaching 40 million international visitors by 2020 and 60 million by 2030. Accordingly, it is increasingly common to serve customers in a language other than Japanese, and service businesses are faced with the challenge of acquiring multilingual staff. This service aims to address that issue and support service enhancement," said Hiroshi Kuzuno, General Manager, System Integration & Services Market Development Division, NEC Corporation.

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