The latest guest night statistics in Japan in May 2017 (the secondary report), announced by Japan Tourism Agency, finds that guest nights increased by 5.7% year on year to 42.36 million in total, which consisted of 35.85 million guest nights by Japanese travelers (+3.9%) and 6.5 million guest nights by international visitors (+17.3%). Guest nights by international visitors were record-high for May.
The preliminary report for June 2017 finds that guest nights totaled 37.41 million (+1.4%), which comprised 31.26 million guest nights by Japanese travelers (unchanged) and 6.15 million guest nights by international visitors (+9.3%).
The occupancy rates were 60.3% nationwide in May 2017. The number of prefectures with 80% or higher was 11 for city hotels, four for budget hotels and two for resort hotels. The occupancy rate in Osaka was still high with 79.7%, keeping 87.7% for city hotels, 85.4% for resort hotels and 80.4% for budget hotels.
By region, international guest nights were up 23.4% to 2.58 million in local areas and up 13.7% t0 3.92 million in three major urban areas. The growth rate in local areas was higher than that in three major urban areas, which may represent that the inbound market is decentralized.
