Love hotel

Love hotels can usually be identified using symbols such as hearts and the offer of a room rate for a "rest" (休憩, kyūkei) as well as for an overnight stay.

Rooms are often selected from a panel of buttons, and the bill may be settled by pneumatic tube, vending machine, or paying an unseen staff member behind a pane of frosted glass.

Love hotel architecture is sometimes garish, with buildings shaped like castles, boats or UFOs and lit with neon lighting.

[6] There are three predominant chained hourly hotel groups (Victoria, Park Excellent, and Kowloon Tong) in Hong Kong since the 90s, as the economy was booming.

[10] The history of love hotels (ラブホテル, rabu hoteru) can be traced back to the 17th century, in the early Edo period, when establishments appearing to be inns or teahouses with particular procedures for a discreet entry or even with secret tunnels for a discreet exit were built in Edo and in Kyoto.

[11] Modern love hotels developed from the chaya (茶屋) tea rooms used mostly by prostitutes and their clients but also by lovers.

These establishments appeared first around Ueno, Tokyo in part due to demand from Occupation forces, and boomed after 1958 when legal prostitution was abolished and the trade moved underground.

The Meguro Emperor, the first castle-style love hotel, opened in 1973 and brought in an average of approximately ¥40 million monthly.

[3] In 1984, the Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Law placed love hotels under the jurisdiction of the police.

A 2013 study showed that couples' selections of rooms at love hotels were made by women roughly 90% of the time.

[12] Keeping in mind legislation and a desire to seem more fashionable than competitors, an ever-changing palette of terms is used by hotel operators.

[16] They are considered a taboo topic in South Korea and a photo exhibit of love motels taken by a foreigner created a controversy in 2010.

In Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Puerto Rico, they are simply called "motels" (the word is exclusively used for love hotels).

In the United States and Canada, certain motels in low-income areas often serve similar functions as a Japanese love hotel.

[36] Several transactions have been completed where the cash flows from a number of such hotels have been securitised and sold to international investors and buy-out funds.