New luxury hotel to ease Tokyo’s room crunch

TOKYO will get a new luxury hotel in summer 2016, although analysts warn that the Japanese capital is still short of high-end accommodation.

Seibu Holdings has announced plans to open the Prince Gallery Tokyo Kioi-cho hotel on the site of the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka in the city’s Chiyoda Ward. The 250-room hotel will occupy the top six floors of a 36-storey building, which will also house offices, retail outlets and residential units.

The most luxurious property in the Seibu group’s hotel portfolio, rates are reportedly significantly above the 20,000 yen (US$170.73) per night average in a Tokyo hotel.

That is unlikely to put visitors off, however, as Tokyo faces a shortage of rooms at all price points.

A study conducted by CBRE in November determined that if inbound tourism continues growing as anticipated and meets the government’s target of 20 million visitors in 2020 – when Tokyo will host the Olympic Games – there will 14,000 people without accommodation in the city every night of the year.

The shortage of hotel beds is slightly less acute in Osaka where the shortfall is around 7,000 people per night.

“Whenever we interview investors and hotel brands, the number one market where they want to be in Asia is Tokyo, and the city is in the top five in the world,” said Arthur Buser, executive managing director of CBRE.

“We believe that anyone who can build a hotel in Tokyo should go ahead and do so and that they will do fairly well.”

New luxury hotels that have recently debuted in Tokyo include the 329-key Millennium Mitsui Garden Hotel and the 84-unit Aman Tokyo.

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