I have gotten my vacation in April. I am pretty happy about it. So, I booked hotel in Tokyo after some research. It is a bit weird since Japan is my home country and I had live in Tokyo suburb for more than 10 years however I didn’t know hotels much to be honest. It is because, you know, I didn’t need to stay there when I was living. Anyways, so I have looked over more than 300 hotels in Tokyo and asked a number of friends living in Tokyo which hotel I should stay.
Also inbound tourism in Japan is booming now, foreign tourists have been increasing since 2011 from almost all countries. The tourists of the year of 2011 dropped dramatically because of earthquake. Since then, the foreign tourists in 2013 exceed 10 million (2013) and increased 13.4 million (2014), 19.4 million (2015), and finally reached 24.0 million (2016). Japanese government expects 40 millions in Olympic year 2020. I wanted to write more about Japanese inbound tourism in the future so I will compare this statics in future to talk about tourism in Japan. For this post, I will talk only about hotel because some people now might be interested in hotels in Tokyo.
So anyways,
Tonight, I am privileged to announce this year’s best outstanding hotel in Shin’s awards 2017 is given Tokyo “Hotel New Otani”.
Shut up. I am writing.
I will give the reasons why I choose Hotel New Otani.
I will talk about old Big three, new Big three, and Big three in 21st century. But first I will think about why hotel staying is important to talk about.
Firstly I will talk about how you spend money in Japan. Figure (left) shows that the consumption by a foreign tourist estimated by Japan tourism agency. The transportation expense looks low. I believe this is because more than 80 percent of tourists are from Asia, the numbers are roughly, Europe+America+Oceania 12.7%, East Asia 72.7%, South East Asia 11%, and the rest is only 5%. And of course Chinese people are buying a lot now, Shopping seems very high right now but it will settle. Finally for food, foreign tourists want to do most in Japan is eating Japanese food based on research from Japanese National Tourism Organization (JNTO). So, you might know more than me what to eat and where to go. For this post, let’s look at accommodation which is 2nd largest expense after shopping, to maximize your satisfaction for staying in Japan.
So next figure (right), this is satisfaction function based on my personal feeling as function of yen. I plot the scale with log (yen) in transverse axis so watch out. As you can see, there might be 4 area, you Budget hotels, Standard hotel, Upper class hotel, and Luxulay hotel. I will write about more in Budged hotel later. For the standard, I don’t have good impression the price typically ¥7000-¥12000 (like US$61-104) but they all looks same services is not bad level. As for luxury ones are really expensive cost more than ¥30000 (like $260USD). I would rather spend more money for food since the best sushi restaurant (the really best and expensive) costs $300-500 at most. Typically, you can find best and really food less than $100. Food is like $5-20 if you find reasonably good ones. Praise the Japan’s 20 year’s deflation!! So here, I really recommend the hotel Upper class when you are traveling in Japan, the range should be like 15000-30000 (like US$130-260 per night).
Finally I would start talking hotel in Tokyo.
There are Old Big three hotels in Japan. These are Hotel New Otani, Imperial Hotel, and Hotel Okura. Hotel Okura main is now under renovation for Olympic game year. Annex is still available. Hotel Okura, some people remember from Steve Jobs’ biography, is the hotel he used to stay when he had business in Japan. There are descriptions in the book story about eating Unagi sushi with his daughter. I think you can go there only for sushi restaurant too. Imperial hotel is also very good hotel, I would recommend staying there also. But it might not be best recommendation for today.
The next in new Big three hotels in Tokyo, they are Hotel Chinzanso US$292, Westin $293, and Parkhyatt US$668. Of course, you can try them. They are getting expensive like you see. They should be great hotels, but it costs very much to me.
Finally, new Big three in 21st century hotels Ritz-Carlton US$604 Mandarin US$636, and Peninsula US$930, so American started building 5 stars hotels in Tokyo since 2000 roughly. They are not any of Big threes but as I put these two hotels as reference, they are Grand Hyatt (unknown) and 4SEASON (US$1695). I can’t sleep every hour costs almost $100? I must feel 100 percent satisfaction. I should be able to sleep well, or can’t I?
Now you got idea.
Are you ready to listen to the price of Hotel New Otani?
It’s US$152.
I know, I know, it is like FREE, right?
Don’t you think so, old sport?
They are one of old Big three. They have really beautiful Japanese garden (http://www.newotani.co.jp/en/tokyo/garden/index.html) and 38 nice restaurants, and very close to Imperial palace and any famous places to visit in Tokyo. You can see a lot of green even if you are staying in Tokyo. To be fair, I put price the other old big three they are Imperial hotel $430, Hotel Okura $237. One concern I have for New Otani might be the number of room, they might have too many so too many customers. But, as you can see the figure below, the New Otani is the exceptional. This is my final answer as you see below.
Also some people might want to use Airbnb. I am not familiar with it so, sorry, I can’t write but I heard there are plenty of them and some of them are really nice. Whilst, I would like to recommend Budget hotels for some people who are interested in,
If you are bookwarm, Book and rest should be best,
http://bookandbedtokyo.com/en/tokyo/index.html
http://asia.nikkei.com/Life-Arts/Japan-Trends/Reading-drinking-sleeping-all-in-one-bookshop
If you are a railfan, a railway company renovated train for hotel
http://trainhostelhokutosei.com/en/
If you were women, there are capsule hotels for women
http://nadeshiko-hotel.jp/yado-lodging.html
If you want to make friends from traveler from everywhere, Sakura hostel is the hotel you should choose. Also they can provide a lot of event while you stay in Japan
https://www.sakura-hotel.co.jp/
So this is my observation, I haven’t stayed New Otani yet to be honest. So I might report after I stay there in April if you want me to. I hope this helps someone to look for accommodation in Tokyo in near future. Enjoy staying Tokyo, Japan. Thank you for reading.
(I used currency conversion US$1=115 yen, US$1 = 0.7595 A$, the price of hotel is an online travel service, the price was quoted on 27th Feb. 2017 for April weekday’s one night stay)