Originally Posted by
smithrh
After I returned, I happened to watch one of those YouTube walkthrough videos of Osaka at night which was done recently. They walked by the Conrad Osaka, and to my surprise only the top two floors had any lights on - at least for the side that was in the video. The other floors were completely dark. I mentioned this elsewhere and a recent guest said that they understood some of the hotel was indeed shut and they were having issues with water pressure/heat because of it.
Here in the states, shutting down entire floors during covid was a common response to save on expenses. Indeed, I was a regular at one place that went down to two floors, and they only opened the second to keep spacing between occupied guest rooms with a 48-hour break between occupants as well.
I wonder if - for some hotels - they aren't seeing the traffic to justify opening more floors, and/or they can't get enough staff to provide the service levels expected. With demand rising and capacity limited, any business person is going to raise rates to match market demand.
Note, I was looking at western hotel brands for this visit. Perhaps this won't apply to local brands supporting intra-country travel by residents.
I have been debating hotel options in Osaka in particular and this actually makes a lot of sense — I've seen base rooms disappear and reappear at a lot of higher-end Western hotels in weird patterns that wouldn't necessarily make sense if the hotel were actually selling out. It may well be they're increasing the number of floors open over time.
I've also noticed a bunch of hotels that are
completely sold out for long stretches — even though there are neighboring properties with plenty of available rooms. Mostly Japanese hotels, in this case, but the Sheraton Miyako Osaka was another example. Completely blocked out from 3/25-4/9. Also seems consistent with "most of the hotel is closed."
Been waiting to book a march weekend at a nice hotel in Tokyo after seeing Park Hyatt at $1600/night and not accepting points. A couple weeks later they were down to $900 and accepting points. YMMV
The interesting thing re: Tokyo is that there are plenty of lower-end rooms available at the same rates as last fall, but everything mid to high end has spiked, particularly among western chains. A lot of it seems like possibly wishful thinking.