LOVE HOTEL

Love Hotel Japan - A short stay style hotel mainly used by Japanese couples wish to have a discrete place to have make love. Love Hotels often have a specific theme or rooms with themes.

A love hotel (ラブホテル, rabu hoteru) is a type of short-stay hotel found in Japan operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy to have sex.

Love hotels usually offer a room rate for a "rest" kyūkei (休憩, kyūkei), as well as for an overnight stay. The period of a "rest" varies, typically ranging from one to three hours. Cheaper daytime off-peak rates are 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. They are often used by young couples, since many young Japanese people live with their parents. They are also commonly used for prostitution.

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 hotels are utilitarian, higher-end hotels may feature fanciful rooms decorated with cartoon characters, equipped with rotating beds, ceiling mirrors, karaoke machines or decked out like dungeons complete with S&M gear.

These hotels are typically either concentrated in certain city districts such as Dogenzaka in Shibuya, Tokyo, near highways on the city outskirts, or in industrial districts. Few Japanese people wish to have a love hotel in their neighbourhood, and construction in residential areas is often opposed.

Love hotel architecture is sometimes garish, with buildings shaped like castles, boats or UFOs and lit with lurid pink and purple neon lighting. However, many love hotels are very ordinary looking buildings, distinguished mainly by having small or covered windows.

(Article based on Wikitravel article by Paul N. Richter, Wikitravel user(s) Jpatokal, Nzpcmad and Luke and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Article used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0.)