Love hotel

A love hotel (Jp. ラブホテル rabu hoteru) is an originally Japanese type of hotel offering privacy and discretion for a couple wishing to engage in sex. Alternative names include romance hotel, fashion hotel and boutique hotel. While such facilities exist in many forms worldwide, Japan's love hotels differ from the typical roadside motel in that a majority of the clientele are, in fact, married to each other and only seeking the privacy not available in their own small accommodations. However, love hotels are also used for prostitution and enjo kosai.

History

In Japan, love hotels developed from tea rooms (茶屋 chaya), which were mostly used by prostitutes and their clients but also as trysting places for lovers. After World War 2, the name tsurekomi yado (連れ込み宿), lit. "bring-your-own inn" was adopted, originally for simple lodgings run by families with a few rooms to spare. These establishments appeared first around Ueno, Tokyo (partly due to demand from Occupation forces) and boomed after 1958 when prostitution was abolished and the trade moved underground. The introduction of the automobile in the 1960s brought with it the motel and further spread the concept.

The name "love hotel" may originate from an establishment in Osaka called Hotel Love, which had a revolving advertisement on the roof. The sign was thus easy to misread as "love hotel", which was adopted for the entire concept. In Japan, however, the original term has fallen into disuse thanks to the euphemism treadmill and an ever-changing palette of terms is used by hotel operators keen on representing themselves as more fashionable than the competition.

Facilities

Love hotels typically offer rates for a rest of several hours (averaging ¥5000, 38 €) or an overnight stay (averaging ¥10000, 78 €). Love hotels are geared towards drop-in visitors, not travellers, which usually means that reservations are not possible, leaving the hotel will forfeit access to the room, and overnight stay rates only become available after 10 PM.

Entrances to love hotels are discreet and interaction with staff is minimized, with rooms often selected from a panel of buttons and the bill settled by pneumatic tube or a pair of hands behind a pane of frosted glass. While cheaper love hotels are utilitarian, higher-end hotels may feature fanciful rooms which are (for example) decorated with cartoon characters, equipped with vibrating beds or decked out like dungeons complete with S&M gear.

Love hotels are typically either concentrated in certain city districts (like Dogenzaka in Shibuya, Tokyo) or located near highways on the city's outskirts for convenient access by car.

Other countries

Similar in concept to the Japanese love hotel is the so-called "short-time" hotel in the Philippines. Such hotels are also known in the local pidgin Taglish (Tagalog + English) simply as "motels," even if such hotels tend to be located in dense urban areas where the only parking space is the street or the narrow sidewalk. Asian-American writer Eugene Gloria published an award-winning book of poetry whose title, Drivers at the Short-Time Motel, validates the English use of the two terms.

Stays at a short-time hotel typically last three hours, with typical rates ranging from PHP 150 to 400. But many establishments, especially in Manila, offer similar rates for half-day stays. A campaign against the hotels, believed by religious conservatives to contribute to social decay in the predominantly Roman Catholic country, ended with the city banning hotels from offering stays of very short duration.

See also: List of types of lodging