Naver is expanding related functions to Naver Map, following Place, in response to rising use of local restaurant search and bookings in Japan.

Naver said on Monday it provides information on about 750,000 restaurants in major Japanese cities through data integration with Tabelog, a Japanese restaurant information platform it partnered with last year.

Some restaurants allow users to click a "Tabelog booking" button on Naver Place, move to Tabelog's booking page and make real-time reservations.

As of August, users who clicked the booking button rose 482 percent from August last year when the feature was first introduced. That is about a 5.8-fold increase in users over one year.

The routes generating booking clicks have also changed. Most inflows initially came through integrated search, but last month clicks from Place detail pages accounted for 76 percent of the total.

During periods when travel demand concentrates, the increase in booking clicks was also large. In December last year, it rose 111 percent from the previous month, and in May this year it increased 50 percent.

Naver said it sees more users in Japan directly finding nearby restaurants and proceeding to bookings, and it is expanding related restaurant information. Japanese restaurants linked to bookings through Tabelog stood at about 75,000 as of September, up 12.7 percent from early this year.

It is also pursuing additional partnerships. Naver is discussing further integration with local companies, including Japanese restaurant platform Gurunavi, to link search and bookings.

It plans to expand the service scope to Naver Map. It is reviewing a beta test that would allow users, within this year, to view Tabelog-linked restaurant information when exploring areas in Japan on Naver Map, and to make reservations at some restaurants.

Naver earlier introduced a global map feature through the "Lab" section of its map app so users can check overseas place information. If Japan restaurant integration is added, it would create a user flow on the map from searching nearby restaurants to checking detailed information and making reservations.

Jihoon Choi (최지훈), search lead for Naver Place, said, "As demand for travel to Japan increases, users' needs are also growing to search for local travel information in Japan through Naver." He added, "We will continue to enhance exploration of local attractions in Japan and booking functions."