Travel Designer· TokyoFormer employee1.0/5
Toxic management leads to high employee turnover
Pros: None that I can think of.
On paper, they allow for some freedom and encourage initiative, but in practice, it’s more of an excuse for a lack of leadership and ideas.
Cons: Amateurism: From the very beginning, the interview failed to cover important aspects of the job. For example, I was told that working hours were flexible, whereas in practice this simply meant that you could choose to start either at exactly 9:00 or exactly 10:00.
Lack of boundaries: My manager would send me Slack messages during weekends to criticize my work and tell me that I needed to improve. There was a clear expectation that employees would remain available outside working hours. It was also mandatory to install Slack on your personal smartphone
No management: There were no one-on-one meetings, no regular meetings, and no discussions about strategy or professional development. As long as they were satisfied with your work, you were essentially left on your own. However, as soon as you faced difficulties or something went wrong, instead of discussing the issue with you, helping you solve it, or trying to understand what happened, management would simply treat you as the problem. Eventually, they would start creating an increasingly hostile environment and pushing you to leave (see below).
Does not value its employees: After encountering a difficulty at work and struggling to resolve it on my own—essentially a customer service issue, despite the fact that I had never been trained for customer service, as my role was focused on learning to work as a Travel Designer in a Sales position - I was dismissed for disciplinary reasons, supposedly because I had repeatedly been late. However, the company did not follow the legally required procedure, which includes warnings and an opportunity for the employee to improve. More generally, I had no indication that my work was considered unsatisfactory: just a few weeks earlier, the CEO had praised my work. It was only after I face a difficulty and started being more vocal about some issues within the company (see below) that management seemed to turn against me and look for a reason to get rid of me.
Black-company practices: The main issue I raised, which I think ultimately contributed to my dismissal, was the expectation that employees carry a company phone during weekends and provide customer service to travelers on a 24/7, 7-days-a-week basis, without any compensation (salary). This expectation was also never mentioned during the job interview.
Finally, I also experienced what I perceived as harassment during the few weeks before the company found a reason to dismiss me. Colleagues stopped talking to me and no longer invited me to lunch. My manager even CC'd me "by mistake" on an email that was clearly intended to recruit someone to replace me, while I was still employed. I was also told things that I believe were unfair and inaccurate, such as being told that my Japanese was incorrect and rude. This was particularly difficult to accept given that my own manager had only a beginner level of Japanese. I qlso later realized that they were even using the name of one of our suppliers instead of mine when referring to me in front of me, while I was still working there.
Conclusion: The employee turnover at this company is extremely high, which is probably why you will see them recruiting constantly. In my experience, they take advantage of young foreign graduates who may be less familiar with proper management practices, workplace boundaries, and Japanese labor regulations. Employees are pushed until they burn out, and those who raise concerns or provide feedback—even constructive feedback—may eventually be pushed out.
Unless you have absolutely no choice but to take this job, I strongly recommend looking at other, more established travel companies instead.
View on GlassdoorTravel Designer· ikebukuroCurrent employee3.0/5
Diverse culture overshadowed by low rewards
Pros: Diverse and multicultural office culture
Cons: Busy work, but in the end your results do not matter. Everyone seems to receive the same standard bonus no matter how much profit they generate for the owners.
Used to be a startup, but is quickly becoming a boring micro-managed corporation.
View on GlassdoorTravel Designer· TokyoFormer employee3.0/5
Be ready to work hard
Pros: Multicultural environment and opportunities to do many various tasks within the company
Cons: Only for hard workers, pressure to respond to customers is very strong
View on GlassdoorTravel Designer· TokyoFormer employee2.0/5
Potentially a good fit for some, but be careful
Pros: Freedom -
If you have experience of working as a travel designer/operations specialist before, this job will be pretty easy for you. There is very little micro-management and you’re generally left to your own devices, so if you know what you’re doing, this would probably be quite nice and easygoing.
Laidback environment -
The dress code is very casual and I rarely saw people wearing formal clothes (including the CEO who’s in the office). You can also start from anytime between 8-10am which provides a nice bit of flexibility.
People -
Excluding a few individuals, most people there seemed to be relatively pleasant and easy to get along with, so you could potentially make some good friends there. They seemed to all be good at their jobs and were trying to make the workplace as fun as possible, so I don’t want to lump them in with the negative things I’ll say about the company.
Cons: Training/onboarding -
For those with no prior experience as a travel designer, you will be expected to learn a lot of what you will be doing on a day-to-day basis on the job/by yourself as the training is inadequate to say the least. I’ve never worked for a company before that gave me less than a week’s training before starting the job, but I can honestly say I probably attended less than a full day’s worth of training sessions that were actually relevant to the things I needed to be doing on a daily basis. This meant I often had little idea what to do and had to try to figure things out by myself, which consequently meant my productivity suffered.
Management -
My experience with one particular manager was disappointing, though I can’t speak for others. Despite being aware of areas where I struggled, they did not take the initiative to address or support these challenges proactively. Instead of offering constructive feedback or arranging further training, they allowed these issues to accumulate over several months and used them as justification for not retaining me after my probation period - to add to this, I only had one meeting after my first month in which a few of my mistakes were highlighted, but after that I had no idea that I was performing so poorly to the point where they decided to let me go due to the lack of communication.
When I raised concerns about the lack of support, they deflected responsibility, suggesting that I had not sought help, which was inaccurate. In reality, I consulted this manager and senior colleagues, and while the senior colleagues tended to be helpful, the manager frequently advised me to figure things out independently.
To make matters worse, I caught this particular manager on several occasions talking ill of other colleagues and mocking them both in person and on the office chat, which they thought they were doing subtly by doing so in private conversations but it was quite obvious those sitting close to them (or perhaps they simply didn’t care if they others knew). This really undermined their trustworthiness and professionalism and made me feel even more apprehensive to approach them.
Also, to give you an idea of how much (or little) management seem to value employees there, on my last day neither my manager nor the CEO (who both sat around 5-10 feet from me) bothered to say goodbye. I wasn’t exactly expecting a grand gesture, but I thought they could at least extend a bit of basic decency to someone they’d just put in an undesirable position without a second thought.
Little margin for error/lack of accountability (from management) -
This issue extends to both travel designers and tour guides, who are judged harshly during their probationary period. The company has one major client responsible for a significant portion of revenue, and the pressure to maintain this relationship often leads to tour guides being blamed for any negative feedback, even when it stems from unreasonable customer complaints. Management’s approach to handling these issues is reactive rather than proactive, with little effort invested in improving training or providing additional support. Instead, they dismiss employees and replace them, perpetuating a cycle of poor retention.
Once again, instead of investing the time to train these companies and improve their onboarding methods to ensure this doesn’t happen again, they just blame the employee, get rid of them and repeat the process.
I heard one manager say that during one hiring period for guides, out of a batch of 10 only 2 survived - you would think this would prompt some self-reflection/critique in even the most complacent of companies to address the underlying issues, but apparently not.
Lack of progression/growth opportunities & financial incentives -
During my fairly short time at the company, I believe I saw 3 or 4 individuals leave, which is quite alarming for a company of less than 50 employees total and probably not a coincidence. Aside from the above reasons, which may or may not have influenced these individuals’ decisions, I believe one of the main reasons may have been lack of realistic progression opportunities. It seemed like some employees had been with the company for several years and were very good at their job, but despite this, they were still doing the same job as entry level staff. Granted, they may have been on a slightly higher salary than the entry level staff, but this isn’t really going to be reflected on a resume in any significant way, nor is going to make a huge difference financially given how weak the yen is currently.
There are only 2 managers and it didn’t seem as though there were plans to make create new teams with new managers, so I think the chances of securing a promotion there would be very slim.
Moreover, the salary range is not particularly appealing - you could probably make more as a simple English teacher at certain companies. To add to that, although there is a bonus system in place (twice a year, which is pretty standard for Japanese companies) there are no performance-related incentives in place, which is quite strange for a job that is predominantly sales-oriented. I can imagine this would diminish motivation and enthusiasm to stay at the company long-term for most individuals.
View on GlassdoorCompany review data sourced from Glassdoor.