Travel Content Producer - Marketing Department, Travel & Mobility Business (C&M)

Job Description:

Business Overview

Rakuten Group's mission is to "Empower people and society through innovation."

Under this corporate philosophy, we are committed to transforming and enriching society by providing highly satisfying services to our users and business partners, and by fostering the growth of many individuals. We offer over 70 diverse services, including Japan's largest online shopping mall "Rakuten Ichiba," the online travel service "Rakuten Travel," and the online booking service for golfers "Rakuten GORA."

Department Overview

Rakuten Travel, one of the core services within the Rakuten Group, is an online travel service that offers a wide array of travel experiences to domestic and international travelers. Our goal is to 'enrich people's lives through travel.' As one of Japan's largest online travel agencies, we continue to grow, delivering new travel value to customers worldwide.

Within this context, the Marketing Department aims to clearly communicate Rakuten Travel's value to both domestic and international travelers through optimal marketing strategies. By expanding our fan base, our ultimate objective is to make Rakuten Travel a beloved service not only among Japanese travelers but also among travelers across the globe.

Position:

Why We Hire

Our aim is to make Rakuten Travel the service that users choose through the power of content.

We define "content" broadly: everything that helps a user find and confidently book their ideal stay - user reviews, hotel-authored articles, photographs, geographical information, and much more. Our vision is to weave these into a single "content ecosystem": a scalable and original engine that strengthens the matching between users and properties, and generates a competitive advantage that is genuinely hard to imitate.

This matters more than ever in the age of AI. High-quality, structured content is the raw material that superior AI travel experiences depend on. The team that owns the best content owns the future of this industry - and that is exactly the position we intend to hold.

Right now, we are especially focused on user reviews from guests and the original content that properties post on Rakuten Travel. By combining this vast body of content with AI, we are working to build scalable and unique content, each piece organized around a distinct angle that is genuinely meaningful to users.

Through this:

・ For users: decide which property is right for them with confidence and ease - and discover wonderful hotels they never would have found on their own.

・ For properties: showcase their unique strengths to exactly the users who will love them.

・For Rakuten: maximize the volume and quality of matching, grow the content itself into an independent, traffic-driving brand, and carry our domestic content advantage into our global service.

We are looking for producers who want to build this ecosystem with us - the scope of the mission spans from user insight, to content creation, to the product that delivers it.

・Impact and Innovation at Scale

Building a new content ecosystem within one of Japan's largest and most influential travel services is an opportunity to redefine how people choose where to stay. Your work reaches countless travelers directly. In an exciting era where AI is driving dramatic change across the OTA industry, content sits at the very center as a key differentiator. This is your chance to create something new - at scale, at speed - and to empower people and society.

・Work Directly with a Wide Range of Professionals

You'll work shoulder to shoulder, at close range, with a diverse team of highly skilled professionals - CRM and digital marketing specialists, product managers, data scientists, and designers - and grow together. You can develop a broad range of skills beyond content marketing, and grow toward roles such as leading overall content strategy, or into other marketing domains.

・Design Original Content and Matching with Diverse Data

You can design content on top of an exceptionally rare and massive dataset, enriched by member data spanning Rakuten Ichiba (e-commerce), Rakuten Card, Rakuten Mobile, and more.

・Empowering Culture and Autonomy

Our organization embodies a "Get Things Done" spirit. You are encouraged to proactively propose new initiatives, entrusted with significant autonomy, and empowered to lead products and businesses forward.

Position Details

As a Travel Content Producer, you will help build Rakuten Travel's content ecosystem.

The ecosystem is built through four stages:

1. Understand user needs and the characteristics of properties in detail.

2. Obtain primary information that matches those needs (mainly user reviews and hotel-authored content).

3. Process that information (build semantic axes, generate rankings, and more - actively leveraging AI).

4. Deploy it as content (creating pages, feeds, and creatives, and distributing content across the service).

Accordingly, we are hiring across three tracks. You do not need to fit all three - strong experience relevant to ANY ONE of them is enough to apply. We will match your role to your strengths.

Track 1 - Researcher / Planner

Design what we build and why it matters to users. Responsibilities include user needs research, property research, designing the angles for framing properties, defining editorial concepts, coordinating stakeholders across the project, and driving PR strategy. Best fit for people with experience as a producer, or in content marketing, editorial/media, event planning, sales to properties, or the travel industry.

Track 2 - AI Editor / Pipeline Designer

Transform primary information such as collected reviews - based on input from researchers and planners - into structured, distributable content at scale. Responsibilities include AI-driven bulk data editing and enrichment, preparing clean distribution data, and data analysis. Best fit for people who enjoy working hands-on with data, prompts/LLMs, and content pipelines, and who like approaching content as engineering.

Track 3 - Content Director

Turn the data structured based on input from researchers and planners into concrete output that reaches users as a great experience. Responsibilities include planning output along the user journey, designing and directing concrete output, and UI/UX improvement. Best fit for people from web producer/director, UI, or product backgrounds.

Work Environment

Team Structure

Marketing Department (about 70 people)

・Content Marketing Group (8 total) - 1 Manager, 3 marketing members, 4 product managers

・A diverse age range from 20s to 40s.

・Experience mix: A balanced team of both early-career and experienced members.

・Working language: Japanese is the primary language for day-to-day communication in this role, though English is needed for communication with designers and others.

Mid-Career Talent: Backgrounds and Growth

・ SEO specialist from a job board service

・Used-car e-commerce web director and digital marketer

・ Product manager from a major social media platform

Career Path Examples

・Promoted to Assistant Manager in another Marketing group within the first year of joining

Mandatory Qualifications:

We are looking for people who genuinely enjoy domestic trips involving overnight stays, and who can create content with the perspective of an engaged, real user. Specifically, we expect BOTH of the following:

(A) Your experience and passion as a traveler

・ You frequently enjoy domestic leisure trips involving overnight hotel stays throughout the year.

(As a guideline, we envision someone who travels privately several times a year or more, choosing and booking their own accommodations. We are looking for people for whom travel and choosing hotels are woven into their lifestyle - not something they do only occasionally.)

・You have a strong interest in "what kind of property is right for what kind of guest."

For example, you can think about hotels and travel from the real perspective of users - "families with toddlers need high chairs in the buffet hall," "a hot spring with a secluded feel that's still easy to reach without a car might appeal to women travelers," "for motorcycle travelers, information on motorcycle parking is essential." Rather than being limited to your own preferences, we value people who - as producers of travel content - are genuinely interested in what makes a "great property" for a wide variety of users.

(B) Strong, results-backed experience in AT LEAST ONE of the following

・Track 1 (Researcher / Planner): Experience - as a producer, or in content marketing, editorial/media, or event planning - carefully researching user insights, defining them sharply, and translating them into concrete plans. OR experience in sales to properties or in the travel industry, giving you deep familiarity with the services and business of accommodations.

(We envision the ability to accurately capture the needs of each target and give them concrete form as property angles, themes, and content.)

・ Track 2 (AI Editor / Pipeline Designer): Experience in data analysis or in building AI-powered systems. For example, we envision people who can move AI and code to produce and prepare large volumes of content/data hands-on - such as using AI-assisted "vibe coding" to build an app that streamlines your organization's work, or writing your own code to process and edit data in a database.

・Track 3 (Content Director): Experience designing and directing user-facing output. Experience defining scenarios along the customer journey through UX research (in-depth interviews, behavioral data analysis, usability testing, etc.) and quantitative/qualitative analysis, then executing web/content production and UI/UX improvement in line with those scenarios, and coordinating internal and external stakeholders to ship it.

Desired Qualifications:

・ Experience as a Web Producer or UI Designer, including user research, user scenario design, product/service planning, internal/external stakeholder coordination, and director management.

・ Experience managing corporate accounts on third-party social media platforms such as Instagram.

・Experience as a Product Manager, including defining product development specifications.

・ SQL: Intermediate to Advanced proficiency.

・ Python: Intermediate to Advanced proficiency.

・Tableau: Intermediate to Advanced proficiency.

・ Figma: Intermediate to Advanced proficiency.

Other Information:

Additional information on Location

Rakuten Crimson House

1 Chome-14-1 Tamagawa, Setagaya City, Tokyo

Additional information on English Qualification

TOEIC Score exceeding 800 (or similar level of English ability) or a University Degree earned in an English-speaking country.

Proof of qualifications will be required by the time of the job offer.

If no evidence is available to prove the qualifications denoted above, taking an IP test, organized by Rakuten, during selection process is required.

Rakuten Group, Inc. Homepage Link

- Benefits:https://corp.rakuten.co.jp/careers/benefit/

- Recruitment Information:https://corp.rakuten.co.jp/careers/information/ * Employment type is detailed

- Rakuten Culture: https://corp.rakuten.co.jp/careers/culture/

#business #ProductMarketing #commerce #RakutenTravel