Love hotels booming in Japan

Japan’s love hotels are attracting interest from more than just couples looking for a place to spend a few private hours.

Investors are also interested; this vast market seems to be proving more resilient to the recession than luxury business hotels.

There are about 25,000 love hotels in Japan which are visited an estimated 500 million times a year.

Clustered around train stations, they are doing a brisk business despite the worst recession in living memory.

"Of course some hotels did [suffer], but not love hotels," says Joichiro Mochizuki, an executive with a company which runs a number of love hotels, including the Asian P-Door in Tokyo.

"Not like city hotels, not like business hotels – for this love hotel we had a 3-4% drop but otherwise we have kept a 400% occupancy rate."

That means each room is, on average, used four times a day.



The love hotel industry is huge, estimated to turn over about £25bn ($40bn) a year.

I first heard about Love Hotels from Steve Aoki. You can read about it here

How soon do you think Love Hotels will begin to be marketed in the US? Red Roof Inn does not count!