Hotel Boom

As you may heard, the large Dutch-themed Nagasaki resort, Huis Ten Bosch applied for court protection from bankruptcy (Chapter 11) this week, with debts of JPY228.9bn. Sasebo, where Huis Ten Bosch is located, has both a seaport and airport where it had hoped to receive large numbers of visitors, especially from China/Taiwan/Hong Kong. Now that the resort is bankrupt, the big question is whether to use public funds to support it -- given all the tourist dollars that will be lost otherwise.
Ironically, there is now a hotel-building "bubble" going on in Tokyo, and many hotels will open around 2006. To counter those newcomers, existing Japanese hotels has been re-investing to improve their facilities, with investment increases of 49%, JPY73bn, over last year. The amounts are significant: Tokyu Hotel chain JPY2.4bn, ANA Hotel Tokyo JPY1.7bn, Kobe Port Pia JPY1.2bn...
Small onsen (hot springs) in remote parts of Japan have also become popular again, and now for some places reservations stretch as far as two years from now. It seems that with all the chaos going on around us, lots of people are looking for some peace and quiet, without TVs, clocks, and even telephones. Some of these places aren't cheap, either.
Just looking at these trends, I have to wonder if it's an imbalance or just a case of diversification by the public. I had the impression that hotels would lose money in a recession. For example, that people would tend to have weddings somewhere cheaper than the city hotels -- so now these hotels would have to be seeing their profit margins get battered as most of those staying there are eating buffet style, rather than banquets.
Me? Well, I'd rather sit back and relax in quiet onsen now....