Taro Toporific wrote:Foreign hotels aim to put laps of luxury in Tokyo
The Asahi Shimbun, 08/27/2005
Tokyo has few guest rooms going for 40,000 yen or more. The epitomes of Japan's luxury hotels-Imperial Hotel, Hotel Okura Tokyo and Hotel New Otani-charge less than 30,000 yen on average....more...

A tourist or a business person visiting Tokyo may be surprised to see so many luxurious foreign hotels springing up in the heart of Japan's busiest city. Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group International Ltd. opened a new luxury hotel in a redeveloped area of Nihombashi, Chuo Ward, in December. This came after Hilton Hotels Corp.'s high-end brand Conrad Hotel made a flashy debut this summer in the newly developed Shiodome business district in Minato Ward. In addition, Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. and Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Ltd., the operator of Peninsula Hotels, are both scheduled to open hotels in redeveloped areas in Tokyo in the spring and summer of 2007, respectively. All these foreign hotels have a common distinctive feature -- they target business executives with an average room rate of 50,000 yen or higher, compared with an average rate of up to 30,000 yen at many existing Japanese hotels
...Meanwhile, the Imperial Hotel, one of the "Big Three" well-established Japanese hotels and located near the Ginza district with a 115-year history, said it has not been affected by any of the new hotels. It has been able to maintain its guest numbers, with its room occupancy rate staying above 75 percent. "The ratio did not show any fall, unlike our initial expectation," said Saeko Yamanaka, manager and public relations deputy director...more...

Foreign-Owned Hotels Invite Tokyo to Taste Luxury Anew
Influx Spurs Older 5-Star Inns Toward a Fresher Approach
By Akiko Yamamoto
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 3, 2007; A20

TOKYO -- The sliding paper doors are immaculate, the tatami mats so freshly woven that they're still green. Wooden pillars glisten unblemished. The air is filled with the aroma of the mats and wood, a fragrance that Japanese associate with unbridled luxury. Then there is the view -- in the distance, the blue waters of Tokyo Bay glisten.

The room is not in a palace or traditional ryotei inn, but on the 48th floor of the tallest skyscraper in the Japanese capital. It's part of a suite available to anyone willing and able to pay $2,000 a night to the newly opened Ritz-Carlton Tokyo hotel.

Following the Mandarin Oriental, the Conrad, the Grand Hyatt and the Four Seasons, the Ritz-Carlton is the fifth five-star international hotel chain to set up in Tokyo in the past five years. The newcomers are giving greater choice and better service to the swelling ranks of Japan's New Rich for nights away from home.

They're also squeezing Japan's own upscale hoteliers, whose aging establishments in central Tokyo have come to seem faded and uninspired by contrast. "Japanese hotels have failed to deliver, and many wealthy Japanese have shifted their patronage to the new Western luxury hotels," said Mitsuyoshi Horaguchi, associate professor for hotel business studies at Musashino University in Tokyo.

For decades, real estate prices protected the Japanese hotels. During the bubble economy of the late 1980s, the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo were theoretically worth as much as the whole of California and even the richest international hotel chains couldn't dream of opening in Japan. But after land prices fell to 25-year lows in the late 1990s, they began to move in.

Industry analysts say it's the little things that have cost many Japanese hotels dearly. Foreign hotels offer flexible, spontaneous and innovative services. They might add or remove ingredients from a pasta dish on request, something few Japanese hotel restaurants would do because there the menu, not the diner, is king.

The Ritz-Carlton will make an ice sculpture that holds an engagement ring for a man planning to propose to his girlfriend. It also places playful little cards under beds in hopes of wowing fussy and hypochondriac Japanese guests. The cards say: "We cleaned here too."

At the Mandarin Oriental's Tapas Molecular Bar, 14 guests a night eat a 20- to 30-course science-experiment-like dinner put together by renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria. The Hong Kong-based Peninsula Hotel, which is scheduled to open in Tokyo in September, plans to offer a chauffeur service featuring a 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom.

For its part, the Ritz-Carlton is offering a Diamonds-Are-Forever Martini in collaboration with the jeweler Bulgari. Each $16,000 cocktail will come with a one-carat Bulgari diamond at the bottom, and as long as you don't swallow it you can take it to any Bulgari store in Tokyo and have a ring fitted to the stone for free.

"Japanese guests are expecting unique, memorable and personable experience," said Ricco DeBlank, general manager at the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo. "I wanted to attract the guests and emotionally impact them not just by the view here but by everything that comes from arrival to departure."

The Ritz-Carlton already has 205 weddings booked for 2007, he said. These start at the equivalent of about $24,000 and spiral upwards. For $1 million the hotel throws in the wedding dress, jewelry and a private jet to fly the newlyweds off to a honeymoon in Bali and Milan.

"I found with Japanese that if it is something outstanding -- the service or room or menu -- they don't mind paying for it, but it has to be very, very good," said DeBlank.

Kazuko Obata was waiting one recent afternoon for her boyfriend in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt. She had turned 24 on March 13 and was to stay at the hotel to celebrate her belated birthday. "Foreign luxury hotels let you have a special experience," she said. "The atmosphere is fantastic. If you add surprises, luxury and sophistication to your special occasion, you have great memories. That is what foreign luxury hotels can give. And that is something the Japanese hotels simply can't."

In the 1990s, few Japanese hotels invested in their facilities. To fill empty rooms, they teamed up with cut-price package-tour companies, which brought in customers by the busload, but further undermined their image for excellence and became one more reason for wealthy Japanese to stay at Western luxury hotels.

At some Japanese five-stars, times got so bad that managers investigated the supernatural. The Hotel New Otani is popular among politicians, and had long been considered one of the three best hotels in Japan. But the 1990s downturn in the economy and the subsequent arrival of the luxury foreign hotels left it eerily empty much of the time. So hotel officials hired a shaman-cum-business consultant. He informed them that the land it was built on was cursed. Hotel staff laying out mounds of salt to ward off evil spirits became a regular sight.

Belatedly, the New Otani is also taking more orthodox measures to increase its allure. By October, it plans to have spent $85 million renovating its facilities. The Imperial Hotel, another traditionally top Japanese name, is in the midst of a $145 million refurbishment slated for completion next year.

"Admittedly, we are not in a situation in which we can be very optimistic," said Ukou Komatsuzaki, spokesman for the hotel, speaking of the foreign competitors. "But we would like to not fear their entering the Tokyo market, but have an adequate sense of crisis to cope with the situation. We are going to do what best we can do. The renovations are to strengthen our competitiveness and brand name."

Kuang_Grade wrote:For its part, the Ritz-Carlton is offering a Diamonds-Are-Forever Martini in collaboration with the jeweler Bulgari. Each $16,000 cocktail will come with a one-carat Bulgari diamond at the bottom, and as long as you don't swallow it you can take it to any Bulgari store in Tokyo and have a ring fitted to the stone for free.

A new era may be stirring in Japan - or is that shaking? Two decades after the "bubble economy", when the ostentatiously wealthy sprinkled gold on food and drank pink Dom Perignon champagne by the magnum, the glass is filling again in Japan with a Martini on rare ice. The "diamond-tini", a cocktail with a hint of lime and chilled Belvedere vodka over a 1.06-carat stone, is topping the Ritz-Carlton beverage menu at a cool 1.8 million yen. That price includes drink preparations tableside, a serenade of Diamonds are Forever as a cut stone slides to the martini glass bottom, and later a ring mounting by a local jeweller. "It's a timeless drink and diamonds are a girl's best friend, so you combine both this time of year in Japan when proposals are rampant," says hotel manager Bernard Viola. The Ritz recently opened in the Tokyo Midtown development in the trendy Roppongi district. "There is a market for everything you create. Today it is all about luxury," says Viola, who expects to eventually sell three diamond-tinis a month, though so far there have been no orders...more...

WITH the opening of The Peninsula, Tokyo is welcoming the latest in an onslaught of international luxury hotels that are adding new glitz to the world's most populous city. The Peninsula - with 314 rooms, five restaurants and a spa - opens on Saturday. It is the eighth hotel of Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, which like other luxury chains waited years to enter the lucrative Japanese market. Nineteen new hotels have opened in Tokyo since 2000 thanks to a loosening of regulations and Japan's economic recovery. The hotels have a loyal following of customers ready to spend thousands of dollars for lavish attention. Kaoru Uehara, 40, drinking tea with a friend under the dim lights of a restaurant on the 45th floor of the Ritz-Carlton, said she spends 300,000 a month on services at hotels - not including rooms. "I try out new hotels as soon as they open, to try their food, experience the atmosphere. I come to hotels to escape, to relax,'' she said, overlooking the Tokyo skyline from the Ritz. "I stay at high-end hotels in Tokyo several times a year, even though I do live in Tokyo,'' she said with an almost apologetic laugh.

Tokyo's new international hotels are posting high occupancy rates despite costs that can run beyond 60,000 a night. "Luxury hotels that did not exist in Japan are finally entering the scene, offering room prices that are far more than the ones offered by even the most upscale Japanese hotels,'' said Ryuji Sawada, chief analyst of luxury and leisure industries at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Tokyo of course has long-established Japanese five-star hotels - namely the Okura, New Otani and the Imperial, which was built by Frank Lloyd Wright. But while the Japanese hotels remain addresses of choice for visiting dignitaries, they are relatively inexpensive compared with top-notch hotels in major Western cities. The old, the trendy ... and the ladies

The arrival of international luxury chains started in 1994 with the sleek Park Hyatt, featured in the film Lost in Translation. Last year, Japan's leisure market including hotels grossed an estimated 80 trillion. High-end hotels have sprouted mainly due to changes in laws that allow for larger buildings, and adding non-office space to high-rise complexes. While Tokyo is drawing a record number of foreign tourists, well more than half the clientele at luxury hotels here are Japanese. Retiring babyboomers, trendy nouveau riche and independent career-focused women have become important niche segments. Hotels such as the Tokyo Prince Hotel Park Tower offer "ladies only'' packages that include holiday specials with massages using lotions made of chocolate during the week of Valentine's Day.

"We're so lucky in Japan that because of confined conditions that people live in, people love to go to hotels on weekends. They use hotels for refreshment, to relax in a very nice environment,'' said Malcolm Thompson, general manager of The Peninsula Tokyo. "And now that the international hotels have come to establish themselves here with very contemporary designs it's even more appealing to the Japanese customer.'' But the competition to attract loyalty from Japanese customers, who are known to be finicky, is fierce. "Japanese consumers are immediately attracted by what's new. There are many tourists who will stay one night at a luxury hotel and so it takes time to see who will be attached to which,'' said Mr Sawada.

Accordingly, hotels are going for a "boutique'' feel - cutting down on room numbers and putting weight on customer service, giving the customer the impression that he or she is being fully attended to. "Let's face it, when people come into large hotels they feel a bit intimidated - they don't want to look dumb,'' said Mr Thompson. "So that's why it's important to make people feel at home the moment they step in and not in some giant airport,'' he said as he stood admiring a simple but modern chandelier in his hotel's front lobby. As customers are ushered through the front doors by white-clad bellboys, they are immediately greeted by the aroma of food from "The Lobby,'' giving the sense of stepping into a comfortable living room. "For me what's most important is feeling spiritually at ease in a hotel,'' said 63-year-old Kazufumi Chiyooka as he sat waiting for family members to join him for dinner at another upscale hotel.

But the fast-growing hotels also have a problem: finding enough qualified staff to cater to growing personalised customer demands. "The expectation of quality service is increasing,'' said Chris Moloney, chief executive officer of Intercontinental Hotels Group ANA Japan. Hospitality schools remain rare in Japan unlike in Europe or the United States. As in any other Japanese firm, workers are expected to enter at a lowly corporate rank and work their way up. Hotels need employees who can quickly remember customers - their faces, names and preferences - and for a long time. "I think where hotels are struggling is with their staffing,'' said James Fink, general manager of real estate firm Colliers Halifax's leasing division. "Invariably the hotels that have the good staff have to replace some of them - and the ones that are new have to fill in with some people who are not that skilled,'' he said.

Mulboyne wrote:The Nikkei says (no link) that occupancy rates at the top foreign brand hotels in Tokyo have been falling. Shinjuku's Park Hyatt saw a fall of around 15 points in March and April compared with last year and is averaging 50-60% for the calendar year so far. The Grand Hyatt in Roppongi, which has operated above 90% since opening in 2003, has seen occupancy slip below 80% and may be averaging as low as 70% for the year. The Westin Hotel in Ebisu is also reported to be at the 50-60% level. These hotels depend to a large degree on business travellers from America and Europe and the problems in global financial markets have led to a fall in their numbers.

Mulboyne wrote:The Nikkei says (no link) that occupancy rates at the top foreign brand hotels in Tokyo have been falling. Shinjuku's Park Hyatt saw a fall of around 15 points in March and April compared with last year and is averaging 50-60% for the calendar year so far. The Grand Hyatt in Roppongi, which has operated above 90% since opening in 2003, has seen occupancy slip below 80% and may be averaging as low as 70% for the year. The Westin Hotel in Ebisu is also reported to be at the 50-60% level. These hotels depend to a large degree on business travellers from America and Europe and the problems in global financial markets have led to a fall in their numbers.

kamome wrote:Any indication whether this is leading to discounts on room rates?

omae mona wrote:I can't imagine that the new openings in the last 2 years have not contributed to the downturn in occupancy rates. The Ritz-Carlton, Peninsula, Conrad, and Mandarin Oriental are a few I can think of off the top of my head. That's a lot of new rooms on the market. Their customers are almost certainly customers who would have stayed at the Hyatts or Westin before. Furthermore, at least a few of the higher end Japanese hotels (New Otani, Okura) have undergone extensive renovations, and I wonder if this is helping lure customers away, too.

A rush of posh foreign-funded hotels erected in Japan in recent years are feeling the pinch because of the U.S. sub-prime loan problem, according to the June 8 issue of the Sunday Mainichi, a weekly current affairs publication put out by the Mainichi Newspapers.

Occupancy at accommodations like the Park Hyatt Tokyo in Shinjuku (the setting for the 2003 movie "Lost in Translation") and the Westin Hotel Tokyo are apparently down by as much as 60 percent.

Much of the missing clientele is apparently because fewer Western business people in finance or investment fund fields are heading to Tokyo.

"Because foreign hotels work on a global basis, their mainstays are corporate contracts. If there is a corporate contract in place, the hotels can offer 50,000 yen-per-night rooms to individuals at a much cheaper rate and many businessman can take advantage of this to have long-term stays," a hotel industry insider tells Sunday Mainichi. "We can't deny the sub-prime problem has had an influence, but think this should only be a temporary problem."..more...