By The Hour: The Story Behind Japan’s Love Hotels
With life expectancies rising, a diminishing interest in marriage and a high population density, multi-generational houses are becoming ubiquitous throughout Japan leading millions of couples, and increasingly tourists, to stay at pay-by-the-hour love hotels every year. With more than thirty thousand in the country, love hotels are now a multi-billion dollar business that accounts for a quarter of Japan’s sex industry. In an ever-greatening tech-orientated and crowded world they offer a unique space for sexual freedom and exploration.
History
The history of love hotels can be traced to the Edo Period (1600–1868) when tea houses with discreet entrances and tunnels were established for liaisons with geishas and sex workers. The term love hotel, however, came into prominence several centuries later courtesy of a neon swivelling sign in Osaka in 1968 that was the precursor to the proliferation of this new type of establishment. As Japan’s economy soared a growing fascination with western culture took hold, with ostentatious love hotels mimicking Hollywood styles emerging throughout the country.
Yet love hotels were initially borne out of necessity; Japanese houses are traditionally small with thin walls, often housing several generations under one roof. After the Second World War an unprecedented economic boom exacerbated already cramped urban living conditions that consequently led to a fervent social need for a place for couples to escape to.
The Inside Story
While some love hotels continue to offer fantastical experiences, boasting all kinds of imaginative bedroom settings (from jungle-themed rooms to rotating UFO-shaped beds to Hello Kitty-themed dungeons and everything in between), the most essential commodity for a love hotel is still discretion. Often indistinguishable from standard hotels, their secret entrances, private garages and disposable license plate covers ensure anonymity and privacy for all their visitors, may they be married couples, singletons or sex workers.
With establishments in Yokohama, Nagoya and Chiba, one such chain of love hotels is Urban Resorts Japan (URJ). As Chris Gadsby, Revenue Manager of URJ explains, ‘the biggest focus is on anonymity so the biggest difference to a normal hotel is the lobby. They can sometimes seem abandoned as there won’t be someone standing at a desk. Instead, you will often choose your room from a touch screen and pay by machine… Generally the rooms are quite big and kitsch, with features like big spa baths, karaoke machines and massage chairs.’
Despite the country experiencing its longest period of growth in more than a decade, Japan’s economy is still relatively stagnant and staying single has become an increasingly attractive proposition. The carefree and unattached way of life upheld by young singles with high disposable incomes is also influenced by the increased social and economic freedoms of Japanese women who now seek positions of power and emotional independence rather than conforming to cultural beliefs of marriage as an indicator of success.
The evolution of the socio-economic landscape of Japan has led to the emergence of love hotels as an immense market sector, yet according to Gadsby there is still ‘stigma attached to doing business in this area.’ The apparent duality of the nation’s conservative values with the pervasive acceptance of love hotels and what they offer is symbolic of a universal disparity between the rising consumption of adult products and services globally and an unwillingness by banks and merchant services to operate in this area. This stigma has resulted in significant barriers to ‘loans or investments as lots of financial institutions don’t want to be associated with love hotels… [and] as a love hotel we often get charged higher fees by the credit card companies.’
* * *
Love hotels represent a space and opportunity for emotional and sexual expression that empowers individuals and reconnects couples. Yet the barriers to entry placed by banks alongside the Entertainment Law enacted by the current conservative government that places new regulations on love hotels, threatens the existence of this unique and necessary institution, furthered by plans to convert love hotels into standard accommodation for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. In an era of apparent sexual apathy with the Japanese government even offering cash incentives to couples to have more children, the popularity and demand for love hotels continues to defy trends.
***
You can find our partnered Love Hotel provider, Urban Resorts Japan, here.
Find out more about intimate, here.
