Originally Posted by
paperwastage
I think he means, without the pass (to commute between Tokyo and cheaper hotel at outskirts of Tokyo), it'll be impossible to get hotel room (overpriced in Tokyo or all booked )
A JR pass effectively comes out to $40/day (jr 7day, Tokyo wide 3 day, east pass 5 day).
I bet Tokyo hotels would be $400/ night (versus nonpeak $50-$150), Tokyo outskirts 1-2 hour away would be $100-200 (versus nonpeak $50-$100). Hotel occupancy in Japan is already quite high during normal periods
In Rio, hotel prices tripled during Olympics.
You're exactly right-- In fact, an hour ish on the Shinkansen can get you quite far from Tokyo's prices, hopefully.
In Rio, I commuted about 45-60 minutes each way to the Olympics.
Actually, prices were often up more than 3x in Rio. Try 5x for many hotels! For example, an Ibis Budget that usually is about US$35 was nearly $200.
That said, at least 80-90% of all hotel rooms (even at my far-flung hotel!) were pre-booked by country delegations (not by athletes, but for example at my Ibis the Turkish, Salvadoran, and Venezuelan trainers and statisticians, etc were based there the entire 2 weeks).
So, even on the off chance that there IS an open room, it costs 2-5x the normal/rack rate.
A Railpass will take care of some of those issues. I lived in Japan 6 years and can speak Japanese, and used a Green Car 2-week pass last year-- loved the convenience.
Really can't wrap my head around the people here who keep focused on waiting a minute or two for a person to come check the pass (?) as a reason to not get the pass. If it's more expensive, I get it, but the convenience and flexibility can't be beat!