Japan Tourism Agency announced that the total number of guest nights was down 4.3% year on year to 38.1 million in February 2020 (preliminary report). While Japanese guest nights were up 5.2% to 33.2 million, international guest nights drastically down 40.4% to 4.92 million due to spread of the novel coronavirus worldwide.
The average occupancy rate also declined by 8.0 points to 53% in February 2020: 34.2% for ryokan (-4.0 points), 50.3% for resort hotel (-8.5 points), 65.8% for budget hotel (-9.5 points) and 60.2% for city hotel (-19.2 points), as the graph below shows.
The total number of guest nights in January 2020 was up 9.6% year on year to 43.2 million (secondary report), which consisted of 33.5 million Japanese guest nights (+9.6%) and 9.7 million international guest nights (+16.9%).
By prefecture, the top was Tokyo with 6.08 million (+19.9%), followed by Osaka with 3.45 million (+1.4%), Hokkaido with 3 million (+9.6%), Chiba with 2.34 million (+16.7%) and Kyoto with 2.08 million (+69.8%).
When it comes to international guest nights, the top was Tokyo with 2.37 million (+26.4%), followed by Osaka with 1.5 million (+2.3%), Hokkaido with 1.08 million (-6.5%), Kyoto with 890,000 (+113.8%) and Okinawa with 510,000 (-3.0%). The growth rates were 28.5% in three major urban areas and 2.4% in local areas, lower than 15.3% a year ago.
By nationality, the top was China with 3.08 million (+41.8%), followed by Taiwan with 1.29 million (+23.5%), Hong Kong with 710,000 (+42.4%), South Korea with 510,000 (-61.5%) and U.S. with 470,000 (+32.5%), all of which accounted for 70.7% of the total. The highest growth rate was found in Vietnam with 86.3% up.
The average occupancy rate raised by 0.8 points to 54% in January 2020: 33.6% for ryokan (+0.1 points), 52.3% for resort hotel (+0.2 points), 65.7% for budget hotel (+0.3 points) and 67.6% for city hotel (-2.1 points).
