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HOTEL TOKYO
GUIDE - love hotels
A love hotel (ラブホテル, rabu
hoteru?) is an originally Japanese type of hotel offering privacy
for a couple to have sex. Alternative names include romance hotel,
fashion hotel, leisure hotel and boutique hotel. Love hotels are
often used by young couples, since many young Japanese people live
with their parents. They are also commonly used for prostitution.
The areas around love hotels are often littered with posters
advertising "delivery health" (a euphemism for call girls).
Love hotels usually offer a room rate for a "rest", kyūkei (休憩,
kyūkei?) as well as a night's "stay." The period of a "rest" varies
from one establishment to the next, typically ranging from one to
three hours. Very cheap daytime (off-peak) rates are also common. In
general, reservations are not possible, leaving the hotel will
forfeit access to the room, and overnight stay rates only become
available after 10pm.
Entrances are discreet and interaction with staff is minimized, with
rooms often selected from a panel of buttons and the bill settled by
pneumatic tube, automatic cash machines, or a pair of hands behind a
pane of frosted glass. While cheaper love hotels are utilitarian,
higher-end hotels may feature fanciful rooms decorated with cartoon
characters, equipped with vibrating beds, or decked out like
dungeons complete with S&M gear.
Love hotels are typically either concentrated in certain city
districts like Dōgenzaka (道玄坂, Dōgenzaka?) in Shibuya, Tokyo, near
highways on the city outskirts, or in industrial districts. Very few
Japanese people wish to have a love hotel in their neighbourhood,
and often oppose construction in residential areas.
Love hotel architecture is sometimes garish, with buildings shaped
like castles, boats or UFOs and lit up with lurid pink and purple
neon lighting. However, many love hotels are very ordinary looking
buildings, distinguished mainly by having small or covered windows.
As in any industry of this nature, it is often thought that the
proprietors of love hotels must be linked to crime, gangs and in
particular the yakuza. In recent years, and as Japan continues to
change, the love hotel business has drawn the interest of the
structured finance industry. Several transactions have been
completed where the cash flows from a number of hotels have been
securitised and sold to international investors and buy-out funds.
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