Japan's business hotels expanding, revamping to woo foreign guests

TOKYO - Japanese business hotel operators are trying to attract more foreign guests by upgrading their facilities or building new ones.

Greens, which operates 50 business hotels nationwide under the Comfort Hotel brand through a franchise agreement with a US company, will open its first new hotel in five years this autumn.

The company had refrained from opening new locations since establishing one in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, in November 2010 due to weak tourism demand following the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011.

Candidate sites include Nagoya and Kyoto. The new hotel will have 100-300 guestrooms, and a single room will cost around 10,000 yen ($84.27) per night. Greens plans to open 20 new hotels by 2024, mainly in cities.

TKP, a company that leases conference rooms, plans to open 10 business hotels by 2017, mostly in urban areas. In August last year, it built a hotel equipped with rental conference rooms in Sapporo under a franchise agreement with Apa Hotel. The establishment has been popular among foreign customers.

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