Top Hotels In South Virginia|"Hotels Turn Down The Bed For Foreign Tourists"

Source              :  blogs.wsj.com
Category        :  Top Hotels In South Virginia
By                  :  ELEANOR WARNOCK
Posted By     :  Hotels in Virginia Beach South Courtyard

Top Hotels In South Virginia

From multilingual websites to larger beds, Japanese hotels are trying much harder to cater to the needs of foreign guests. The country is looking to woo more visitors from overseas and this new focus on foreign clientele is likely to further intensify following the selection of Tokyo to host the 2020 Olympic Games.Earlier this year, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration set a goal of attracting 10 million foreign tourists in 2013, and the nation is already 60% there as of the end of July. Relaxed visa restrictions for some Southeast Asian countries have helped boost numbers, while the yen’s plunge against major currencies is likely one of the largest factors. According to a survey by the Nikkei released earlier this month, the hotel occupancy rate for major Tokyo establishments in July was 84%, the highest for the month since 2005. The average occupancy for urban hotels nationwide was not far behind, at 79%, according to the Japan City Hotels Association.

Consultants looking to help hotels appeal to foreign visitors say the first step is language: Hotels need to move on from Japanese-only websites and even Japanese-English sites. Osamu Urasawa, who runs O.H. Co., a company offering website design and translation services mainly to hotels, said there’s much more demand for multi-lingual websites, offering languages beyond Japanese and English. This year, Mr. Urasawa said his company has designed almost 10 websites in Thai, a language hotels had little demand for in the past. “About 10 years ago, there was a sense among hotels that they didn’t need to depend on foreign guests, but now they’ve learned that foreign visitors are also reliable on weekdays when the number of Japanese guests might be low,” he said.

Mr. Urasawa added that many Japanese hotel operators do not have the budget flexibility to immediately change their foreign tourist strategy following the Olympic decision. But he said he expected hotel demand for multilingual websites to rise when the next fiscal year begins in April. Once guests have made reservations, the next step is getting them to their hotels. For Nagano prefecture-based Hoshino Resorts Co., whose 14 establishments targeted at foreigners are situated outside of Tokyo, accommodating more inbound tourists means being creative about transportation.

Spokeswoman Kyoko Tanzawa said the group saw a jump in interest among guests from Hong Kong, the U.S. and France when it ran a joint program coordinating accommodation and flights with All Nippon Airways, making it easier for foreign guests to get to locations like the southern island prefecture of Okinawa during their stay. The chain has paired up with East Japan Railway this fall, offering visitors detailed instructions on how to take advantage of the rail company’s discount passes to travel around Japan and visit the group’s resorts. Ms. Tanzawa said the company also provides detailed directions, including images of ticket gates, bus stops and signboards on its website, for tourists who prefer to get to the hotels by themselves.

Some hotels, meanwhile, have focused on making their interiors more attractive for international clients.

Among them, the Prince Sakura Tower Tokyo closed for a makeover in early July. It reopened Saturday with a spruced up look, wireless internet, 134 rooms with king-sized beds (up from 82) and its first-ever Western restaurant, arguably an indication more of how far the hotel was from a vision of foreign convenience. The hotel is trying to double the proportion of its foreign guests to 50% of its total clientele in 2014 from a projected 25% in 2013.

Source : blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2013/09/17/hotels-turn-down-the-bed-for-foreign-tourists/