Number of private lodgings in Japan falls with demand lost due to virus

Some local governments are offering their own travel discount campaigns, but these are limited to hotels and inns, and do not cover private lodgings.

This is incorrect.

Private lodging (minpaku) are indeed covered as long as they comply with the framework of the local Go To program.

And proper hotels and inns are not automatically covered if they do not comply with the framework.

I know this first hand from my neighbour who runs a guesthouse that is registered as a minpaku. He's on the local Go To discount program (and these discounts only got cancelled in the past week due to the virus surge. Yep, the local gov was still offering discounts to entice travelers all through Obon, even though the national government was saying "please don't travel")

One of the main points to comply with is the reservation and payment system. A place needs to (usually) be linked with a domestic reservation website like Rakuten to give the discount. And if a hotel or inn is not on this (one of the inns near me is not bookable online... and its government owned... yeah, I shake my head on that too) then they usually can not be included in the discount program.

I remember 2 years ago, everybody investing in real estate was jumping on minpaku, the returns were crazy, and the prospect of the Olympics was mouth-watering. We were very lucky because we somehow decided the whole thing is too mendokusai, we would have lost huge money, as many people we know did

Did anyone else notice that prices for AirBnb properties went stupid high after the Go To Campaign started?

If not the actual price, then the cleaning fees are outright extortion! I will go out of my way to let the host know that I'm staying at a major hotel instead of his or her property because they are being greedy.

Other tourism-related businesses are suffering too. Companies that took Asian visitors around inaka in buses, for example. Lots of onsen hotels became dependent on Asian tourism.

I can't quite recall the timing of the crackdown, but would the April 2019 to March 2020 period used as a benchmark here also include some months when AirBnb was still listing unlicensed properties? The crackdown on them removed thousands of places from AirBnb and caused a fall in people using that site in Japan even before Covid-19. I can't remember exactly when the crackdown was, but it was definitely 2018 or 2019.

@timon

same here! So much red tape we thought we’d look again in a few years! Glad that was the case!

Very glad I didn't go the minpaku route. Definitely more worth taking your money to another country and investing it in somewhere that actually welcomes it, not that tries to strangle an initiative before it is even born, like they did here with minpaku. Of course it's also important to avoid places getting overrun with mass tourism and locals priced out of housing too, but Japan's response was just kneejerk paranoia that too many foreigners armed with suitcases (Shock! Horror!) would roll into their NIMBY neighbourhood.

I opened a "minpaku" up 3 months before Covid hit and it has been OK. The first 3 months were brilliant.

The 12 months after that were sketchy. Very few bookings between Jan and early June of this year but since then it has been going gangbusters.

I actually just bought some land nearby to build a new place. Things are cheap now for a reason. People are still scared. I get that.

However, pretty sure that 2 years from now everyone will have forgotten about Covid and will be bitching about other seemingly important stuff.

@Blue

It boils down to that there is too much regulatory capture in Japan! This has created issues with Tepco and the Olympics.

I personally thought the "minpaku" regulatory framework was pretty doable.

Not fluent in Japanese but they kind of make it easy for you if you make an effort.

This is sad. I believe many of these proprietors are silently suffering.

I personally thought the "minpaku" regulatory framework was pretty doable.

Yes it is. The rules only stop the worst excesses, like people letting out clearly residential apartments in the city, screwing over their very proximate neighbours in the process. Other cities in other countries have cracked down on Airbnb for exactly the same reason.

If you have a house in a nice town or near a beach somewhere, its pretty easy to set it up.

No matter what, the tourist industry, when rebooted, Japan will always be a bucket list destination, so sit tight good people. Design your futures and concept guest houses. It’ll happen.