Who stays at love hotels? It might not be who you think. The current inbound tourism boom is leading to a serious shortage in regular hotel rooms for traveling businessmen. Business hotels have the lowest vacancy rate ever, it seems, meaning the on-the-move salaryman has fewer choices for where to stay. Where are they turning? According to this article on Ignition, it's to love hotels. It turns to Ken Sato, the manager of the HOTEL SULATA (their caps, not ours) chain, a new contender in the packed field. It opened its main hotel in Dogenzaka, the "love hotel hill" district of ...

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Japanese love hotels come in all shapes and sizes. There are all manner of crazily themed hotels out there, enough to fill more than one coffee-table book. A recent one we looked at is Keibajo US in Niigata, with its classrooms, hospital ward rooms, and more, plus there is this great "vintage Japan" hotel in our old stomping ground of Osaka. Here is another great example of the sheer inventiveness and skill of love hotels to appeal to our fantasies. Again, as we know from the history of love hotels, like with most of the really outrageously designed hotels, it is not in a ...

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Playboy has made a video offering a "rare glimpse" into what they call a "vintage love hotel". Well, Hotel Fukui in the Kyobashi district of Osaka, a business district with a bevy of love hotels behind the station, is actually more like a themed love hotel than a vintage one (initially we were expecting something more like the Hotel Okura). True "vintage" love hotels, as we know, are fairly basic affairs, with nice amenities but a straightforward decor. The gaudy or wacky themes came more recently in the 1970s. Popular Japanese consensus says that by the 2020 Summer Games in ...

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Directed by Ryuichi Hiroki, Kabukicho Love Hotel (Sayonara Kabukicho) came in 2014, promising to be a dark romance. Okay, let's get something straight. As you might expect, star Atsuko Maeda may have left her AKB48 days behind her but unsurprisingly she does NOT strip off in this movie. (Apparently after Maeda was cast the script was radically changed.) Instead we have to make do with modest nude scenes and sex scenes starring members of the supporting cast. As the title suggests, the film is set in a love hotel in Tokyo's sex capital, Kabukicho. Actually, the main (and best) sex scene ...

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Is this the most amazing love hotel ever? All right, that's a pretty bold claim. After all, there are some pretty incredible love hotels out there, from dungeons to swimming pools, and almost every kind of theme or style you could imagine in between. But the Keibajo US in Niigata has got us excited. Shared by @rutile_TiO on Twitter, here are some pictures from the hotel's fantastic rooms and suites. There's a wooden classroom, a samurai sword-themed tacky "Oriental" room, a factory room, a hospital ward room (complete with two hospital beds), and ...

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A story is going viral about a British couple from Brighton who claim they "accidentally" booked a room at a love hotel. And that they liked it so much they stayed a week. After travelling for 27 hours and arriving in a new country for the first time, Hamnams and her boyfriend were probably just relieved to arrive at their hotel in one piece. Having booked online through a reputable agent with no qualms, the pair checked in at the front desk and headed up to their room. "This was kindly laid out at the head of our bed. As confident as we were that ...

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It is said that half of all sex in Japan happens in a love hotel. 1% of the population uses a love hotel on any single day; something like 1,370,000 couples. A large proportion of the nation's new babies are conceived in a love hotel. There are 500 million visits a year. Room occupancy is 600-700% in some busy establishments -- 78.8 stays per room per month! The love hotel industry has an annual turnover of ¥4 trillion yen, which is around four times the operating profits of Toyota and double the anime industry. And yet it's cars and anime that the government wants to push as the face ...

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Google is essential for ours lives -- searching for information, browsing images, checking a location on a map. It can even help you pick the right love hotel. Love hotels have their own websites and there are also plenty of portal sites with information on the various amenities and features at each facility. Needless to say there are images. But none as detailed as these provided by Google Street View, which lets you tour a love hotel in the heart of Shinjuku's Kabukicho. The Designer’s Hotel & Spa Pasha Resort is more fancy than kinky, but sometimes that's what you ...

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Ever been with that special someone and been desperate suddenly to find a love hotel and complete the experience... before the moment passes? Or you know how the date is going and need to surreptitiously check out your options for a more intimate encounter somewhere in the area? Well, Tonight for Two might be the iPhone or Android app for you. The free Japanese app allows you to find and even reserve a room at a nearby love hotel in around ten seconds. Which should be enough time to keep a potential companion for the night interested... Our tip would be to have it on your ...

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We've just heard of this new documentary which takes a look at one of our favorite places, the love hotel. While we don't like the preview's slightly cheap pandering to exoticism and stereotypes about Japan ("in a society where conformity is everything and public affection cannot be shown..." -- really?) that just aren't the whole truth, we shouldn't judge it solely by the trailer. The visuals are interesting, at any rate, promising some nice kinky scenes of S&M inside a love hotel room, by the looks of things. Check out the nurse asking her "patient" if his cock has a ...

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