KYOTO - - Major hotels in the west Japan city of Kyoto saw a 30.4% increase in Japanese guests in August compared to the same period last year, according to the Kyoto City Tourism Association's monthly data report.
Although a fourth state of emergency was implemented from Aug. 20 to Sept. 30 after a quasi-state of emergency was declared from Aug. 2 to 19, it seems factors such as rising coronavirus vaccination rates and self-restraint fatigue led to the increase.
However, domestic tourist numbers were still down by 20.6% compared to August 2019 - - before the COVID pandemic.
The survey covered a total of 17,771 rooms in 100 hotels, about 50% of the hotels in the city of Kyoto. Stays by Japanese guests at 62 hotels subject to the same survey before the pandemic were up 9.2% from August 2020, but down 43.3% compared to August 2019 - still far below the pre-pandemic level.
The hotel room occupancy rate was 26.8%, an increase of 3.4 percentage points from August 2020, but 56.5 points down from the same month in 2019 - a lower occupancy rate than other Japanese cities.
According to a forecast current to this August, room occupancy rates were expected to shift within about 10 - 14% in September and October, but then recover to 22.7% in November. However, it is possible the figure will significantly improve depending on how far restrictions on people's movements are relaxed, the vaccination rate, and national and local government measures to stimulate consumption.
The total number of foreign guests staying overnight was up 67.8% from August 2020, but still represented a decrease of 99.6% of the August 2019 levels. The number of foreign guests in the city has remained almost zero for 17 consecutive months.
The average room unit price was 9,030 yen roughly $80 down 14.3% from August last year. The room revenue index, which is equivalent to sales per room, was 2,420 yen approx. $21 a slight decrease from the 2,466 yen in August 2020. However, it decreased by 78.9% compared to 11,465 yen about $101 in August 2019, indicating that business remains difficult for hotels in Kyoto.