Traveling to Japan on a budget? Need a place to stay? Don't mind people having sex all around you? Well, have I got a hotel room for you.
Enter hotel San Patchi. It's located in Juso, which is a stone's throw from the bustling Umeda district. It's not the best of neighborhoods, sure (they filmed part of Black Rain there!). And this hotel isn't your typical hotel. It's a love hotel.
But hey, room 212 costs 380 yen a night—which is US$3.87. That's any night. No wonder San Patchi is calling this the "lucky room." The hotel's other rooms are pretty inexpensive, too, and start around US$39 for the night and get more expensive from there depending on the day of the week. This is why San Patchi bills itself as a "gekiyasu (激安) hotel" or "dirt cheap hotel."
According to The Tokyo Reporter, the reason for the low price (besides being an obvious publicity stunt) is that love hotels in Osaka are cutting rates. It's possibly the result of crackdowns on prostitution, which might be impacting a regular flow of customers. Moreover, more businessmen are apparently deciding to stay at love hotels instead of traditional business hotels. This is perhaps because the rooms at love hotels are generally larger; however, no business people I know prefer love hotels to conventional business hotels.
This certainly seems to be the cheapest hotel room in the country. Previously, the cheapest hotel in Japan (above) was thought to be 500 yen (US$5.09), and that hotel, also located in Osaka, looked like something out of a horror film.
If the whole love hotel thing doesn't bother you, this could be a viable option. But at this price, no doubt room 212 will be popular. You'll need to get lucky to snag it, no pun intended.
Osaka love hotels cut rates to bone [The Tokyo Reporter]
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