High inbound tourism levels forcing tourists to sleep rough, in airports, or in 'ghost love hotels'

Where to sleep?

“The Haneda Airport departure terminal’s good,” a 45-year-old Osaka executive tells Spa (Dec 3-10).

 For sleep?

Why not?

“Our company’s top accommodation allowance for business travel is 18,000 yen a night” – not bad compared to the maximum 10,900 yen a night a mid-level government employee is permitted by law; still – “I’ve never found a hotel room in Tokyo at that rate. A colleague said to me, ‘Try Haneda.’ Okay, I thought, I’ll try Haneda.” Sure enough: “The chairs are spacious, you can stretch your legs out, there’s a convenience store, a coffee shop…” Word’s getting around: most nights it’s full almost to capacity.

Tokyo is desperately short of hotel rooms, Spa finds. The post-COVID surge of inbound tourism has shown Japan’s enormous appeal to the world (the cheap yen helps of course). Never have so many foreign tourists strained the limits of Japan’s facilities and hospitality, their number projected to hit 35 million by year’s end. Tokyo’s hotel prices soar, “no vacancy” signs multiply. Where’s a business traveler to lay his or her head? Some are driven to some pretty desperate shifts, and the remarkable thing is, if Spa’s report is any indication, how tolerant they are of the stresses involved, what an easygoing sense of humor they display.

Sleep and repose issue the strangest invitations, conceal themselves in the most unlikely places. No one noticed when a hotel room was to be had for a click or a phone call. What business traveler would have thought then of sleeping in… well, for example, a car share car. These are cars rented by the hour or half hour or kilometer for errands. They’re not meant to be slept in and in fact industry regulations more or less ban it, but growing demand exerts its force and topple the barriers. 

“There’s a certain campground I park at for 500 yen,” says a 37-year-old business traveler from Shiga Prefecture. “There’s a coin shower and everything.”

Scanning the internet, a 35-year-old from Hyogo Prefecture happened on a love hotel offering rooms for an astonishingly economical 5,000 yen. It was in a remote back street, but what of that? Nothing – but “really,” he thought as he stood outside, “is this a love hotel?”

More like a disused warehouse it seemed: heavy iron door, moldy smell. “I wouldn’t bring a lover here” – but he was alone, it was only for one night, the price was right; still, an uncomfortable night it proved to be; he felt uneasy in ways he couldn’t put his finger on, and when he woke up in the morning the sheets were inexplicably soaking wet.

“Back home, I told my wife about it, and she said immediately: ‘A ghost!’” It’s as good an explanation as any.

The legal limit on accommodation allowances for government employees seems utterly out of touch with reality – perhaps because reality changed so quickly. 10,900 yen! Not everyone stumbles on a “ghost love hotel” – or would settle for one. “There are late night meetings and I need a place near Kasumigaseki” – Tokyo’s political core – says a 57-year-old bureaucrat from Osaka. With nothing to be had anywhere nearby for less than 20,000 yen, he feels he has no choice. He pays the difference out of his own pocket.

Other options where various budget arrangements can be made, varying degrees of discomfort more or less cheerfully endured, and also various unexpected pleasures enjoyed, include internet cafes, aesthetic salons, co-working spaces (part coffee shop, part office space for remote workers), remote suburban hotels that are available and reasonably priced but likely far from wherever your business is, and last but not least – this is not for everyone – a park bench.

Not for everyone, but a 28-year-old company employee from Osaka, blessed with the adaptability of youth, grinned and bore it and even enjoyed it. “It was last September, still very hot. but in the park it was nice and cool and I got five hours of good sleep. And there’s a fully equipped toilet, so I could wash a bit and brush my teeth.” What more do you need at 28? “The only trouble was,” he says, “mosquitoes. I had to get mosquito repellent at a convenience store for 1000 yen.” So it wasn’t entirely free after all.

© Japan Today