tourism

The Floating Hotels of Tokyo – Handling the Spike of Olympic Visitors

From the book,
From the book, “Tokyo Olympics Special Issue_Kokusai Johosha”

Every time you hold a mega-sports spectacle like the Olympic Games or the World Cup, you simply won’t have enough accommodations to handle the spike in visitors. The Tokyo Government anticipated 30,000 visitors so they asked area hotels to expand and refurbish for foreign tourists, schools and companies to open up their dormitories, and people living in Tokyo to make their homes available to foreigners.

They also had 10 passenger liners visit Japan during the Olympics. These were big ships, 5,000 to 11,000-ton ships with names like “The Brazile Maru”, “The Vladivostok”, “The Oriana”, “The Khubarovsk” and “The Empress of England”.

Ten passenger liners arrived in the ports of Tokyo and Yokohama from October 8 to 13, housing over 5,000 visitors, serving as the perfect temporary housing units. All of the ships departed Japan by October 26, two days after the completion of the Games.

According to Sports Illustrated, around 115 buses were prepared to shuttle the visitors between their floating hotels in Yokohama and the Olympic venues.

Handling the spike in 2020 is definitely a concern for planners. Think Airbnb – get that closet under the stairway ready. Could get you 20,000 yen a night.

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Gone at 53 – The Hotel Okura

From curbed.com
From curbed.com

The Hotel Okura was part of the wave of new hotels built in anticipation of the hordes of tourists that would descend on Tokyo with the 1964 Summer Games. Based on the design of a Kyoto temple, the Hotel Okura was considered one of the poshest places in Asia. If you’ve seen the 1966 Cary Grant movie, “Walk, Don’t Run”, then you saw the Hotel Okura preening in a glow of newness and modernity.

But at the age of 53, it’s apparently time for architectural euthanasia. I’ve stayed at the Hotel Okura, a couple of times, most recently two years ago. Despite the obvious care with which management maintains the hotel, it is looking its age. I suppose a face lift was considered, but the true aim is probably more rooms in a prime location. The Hotel Okura’s 2nd coming will

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Airbnb – Official Sponsor of the 2016 Rio Olympics

#9 of 11 Brazilian Airbnb's You Must Experience
#9 of 11 Brazilian Airbnb’s You Must Experience

Japan may need to learn to love Airbnb.

As the democratization of the hotel industry takes the inevitable step of your home becoming another hotel room, Rio knows it will need to consider all options to accommodate the spike in visitors during the 2016 Summer Games in Brazil.

According to ESPN, Airbnb is now the official “alternative accommodations” sponsor of the 2016 Games. That’s an amazing 20,000 spaces in peoples’ homes available to visitors.

During the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, the government came up with various ideas to increase the number of rooms. One of the ideas was asking owners of private homes to make rooms available to foreign guests. A total of 1,445 beds in 588 homes were available to guests, a 20th century version of Airbnb. But, different from Airbnb, the government made sure that Japanese in charge of restaurants, hotels and shops were provided training and information on food sanitation, medical and first aid services for foreign guests, even to the owners of the private homes.

Let’s see how it goes in Rio. In the meanwhile,

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Ollie the Owl says “It’s Not Lack of Capacity, It’s Inefficiency”

Ollie the OwlTripAdvisor mascot – an owl called Ollie – has one red eye and one green eye. And like the traffic light symbols they represent, TripAdvisor and other online recommendation sites let you know through massive user content contribution which hotels are a-go, and which are not. According to Mr. Michael Stobo, the head of APAC Market Development at TripAdvisor, Japan had a record 14 million foreign tourists in 2014, and that is expected to climb to 20 million in the next five years. Now I thought that a big issue for the Olympics will be hotel capacity, since hotels in Tokyo appear to be already at high occupancy rates on average days.

But according to Mr Stobo, who spoke recently at an American Chamber of Commerce Japan event, the issue is more about inefficiency. “Lots of companies that manage properties in Japan still target mostly domestic travelers,” answered Stobo to my question. “These travel companies – like Jalan, and Rakuten- need to be more externally aware as they are so Japan focused.” “For example, Expedia may only offer 10 rooms of a given hotel to a customer, but while there is actually remaining inventory, those rooms aren’t made available to overseas customers. It’s an efficiency issue. It’s possible because they have difficulty selling in French or German, they are reluctant to make the rooms available (to non-Japanese).” Interesting! Stobo went on to say that Japan needs to continue improving the ability for the non-Japanese to navigate on their own. “It’s not just about making inventory available. Navigating the rail

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The Coming Tokyo Hotel Room Shortage – Is Air BnB a Viable Option in Japan?

From the New York Times Magazine, February 18, 2015
From the New York Times Magazine, February 18, 2015

Hotels in Tokyo are already at record occupancy rates, well over 80%. In many cases, you simply can’t book a room in the major hotels in Tokyo. An acquaintance recently told me that he tried to book hotel rooms for July/August 2020, in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics, but the hotels weren’t biting. By 2020, Tokyo will have an additional 1,780 more rooms available, but tourism to Japan is increasing, and the Olympics will see a huge spike in tourists. What to do? What to do? Is Airbnb the answer? (In the case of Japan, probably not….) Go to NYTimes article.

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