The number of Japanese-style hotel rooms reached 1,776,994 in 2023, a 75% increase from 1975, even as the country faced a tourism slump and shifting t

Portal Site of Official Statistics of Japan website (https://www.e-stat.go.jp/).

from Japan The number of Japanese-style hotel rooms across Japan climbed to 1,776,994 in 2023 , the highest point in nearly five decades of government data, extending a growth streak that defied a pandemic-era slowdown and shifting global travel patterns.

The tally marks a 75% rise from 1975, when the Statistics Bureau first began tracking the category, and now sits in contrast to the contractions seen in many overseas hotel markets.

A half-century of growth e-Stat figures show the room count moved from 1,012,880 in 1975 to just under 1.71 million in 2019, interrupted only by brief dips in the early 2000s and after the 2008 global financial crisis.

The sector regained its pre-2000 high by 2013, then accelerated, adding roughly 270,000 rooms over the following decade. By 2022, annual totals had already surpassed the pre-pandemic level and kept climbing. The 1.

78 million rooms in 2023 represents a post-2010 surge that stands out in a country where hotel construction has historically been measured.

Unlike sharp contractions in North American and European hospitality markets during COVID-19, Japan's ryokan and inn inventory held firm, with annual readings actually rising from 1,739,124 in 2020 through each subsequent year.

Domestic demand, rather than international visitors, kept the sector afloat. The domestic buffer While inbound tourism plunged to near zero in 2020 and 2021, domestic overnight stays propped up ryokan occupancy.

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