Number of hotels and inns in Japan FY 2006-2023
Room occupancy in accommodation facilities
Holiday accommodations in Japan include city hotels, business hotels, resort hotels, ryokan, and group lodgings. While ryokan offer overnight guests a unique experience with its Japanese-style rooms (washitsu), the inns are less commonly found in large city centers and are pricier than hotels, resulting in comparatively low occupancy rates. In contrast, city hotels attract tourists with their comparatively inexpensive lodging around city centers and popular sightseeing spots. Business hotels secured the highest guest room occupancy rate among accommodation facilities in Japan.
Domestic travelers constitute the industry's main pillar
Even though Japan's inbound tourism is growing at a fast rate, domestic travel activities remain the main focus of the market. While the number of lodging guests showed continuous growth in recent years, foreign nationals made up only one fifth of overnight guests. This further declined during the pandemic, as international travel became scant. Among overseas travelers, the most popular prefectures to stay for the night were mainly connected to large metropolises like Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and Hokkaido.