Originally Posted by evergrn

Japanese luxury hotel chains... that'd be an interesting thread.
Problem is, I don't know if there is one.
Jpn has so many hotel chains, yet I don't think a single one of them is consistently 5-star or even 4 star as you'd expect from Westin, Fairmont, IC, etc.

* New Otani - Ones at NASPA and in Yokohama are definitely not luxury hotels.
* Fujiya - The original Fujiya in Hakone has always had dated rooms with sketchy housekeeping.
* Hotel Nikko - Some are legit 4-stars, others (eg, Kawasaki) are really business hotels.
* ANA Hotels - mostly range from 3.5-star city hotels to business hotels.
* Royal Park - Was encouraged when I first stayed in their Minatomirai location, but Shiodome and Kyoto locations are not high-end.
* Okura - I understand their Tokyo location is 5-star, but their Kobe location had unit baths.
* Teikoku - I've only stayed at their Kamikochi one, but hard to classify them as a chain when they only have 3 locations.
* Prince - most inconsistent brand in the world probably... from Sakura/Kioicho Gallery to complete dumps at Sunshine City & Shinjuku.
* Righa Royal - Don't know enough about them.

Pan Pacific is probably the only one I can think of that had the potential to be a legitimate global luxury brand originating from Jpn. Too bad it's not Japanese anymore. Perhaps Royal Park has potential to be a reliably upscale chain, but they're not high-end based on my small sample size.

I think what really ruins the credibility of a lot of the above brands is the prevalence of unit baths which I really despise. I think they're ugly and often smell funky. Unit baths are good space savers, but why are Okura and ANA installing unit baths in rooms that are like 40m2?