If using QR Codes can help companies promote their products, services or brand, can you imagine what it can do to a bunch of lost tourists? Let's just say that in many parts of the world, QR Code is not yet as popular as it is in Japan. However, the craze is spreading like wild fire. More and more people who purchase new phones or replace their old mobile phones ask, 'Is there a QR Code scanner in there?'

Some months down the road in 2009, a group of tourists from Japan will be heading down south to Australia and with them, apparently, there will be a small tiny little book with countless QR Codes in them that could help them through their journey in Australia with their limited mastery of the English language. Queensland….beautiful and an absolutely scenic and diverse place. This group of chefs and café owners will be heading right there to visit many restaurants and gourmet food manufacturers as part of either a study or business trip. The only problem is….communication.

The group of cooks will be using a very simple (by Japan's standard, we're assuming) mobile phone device that is QR Code enabled. Before leaving Japan, the group will download an itinerary to their mobile phones. But it's not merely an itinerary that they're downloading…there's a whole lot more. With the QR Code, they're capturing images, product catalogues, menu and other forms of translated product information with them!

This will prove helpful to these foreigners because of their limited ability to communicate with Australians and other non-Jap speaking people in Queensland. The information that they will bring with them includes the weather forecast and the whole nine yards that helps smoothen out their trip, including location information, checklist of things that they have to do and reminders. In fact, all this QR Code information will also be forwarded to selected family, friends and fellow workers so that these people can keep track of the tourists' activities.

Considering the amount of information that they're going to be downloading and carrying with them during the trip, wouldn't you think that the book is a huge Yellow Pages-sized dictionary in the form of QR Codes? Nope. The 'handbook' is only half the size of an A4 paper (A5) and accordingly, there are less than ten pages to it.

And the amazing thing is that the people in Japan will be updating the information to be displayed right there in Japan. As long as the tourists scan the codes, all updated information will be made available.