Illegal private lodging facilities plunge in Japan after enactment of law
TOKYO: Illegal private lodging facilities have decreased while the price of legal rentals has risen due to the scarcity of available rooms after the Private Lodging Business Law came into force on June 15.
The law establishes rules for offering private lodgings - also known as “minpaku” in Japanese - in which visitors pay to stay in private homes, requiring minpaku operators to register with relevant municipalities.
As of July 6, the number of registered minpaku operators stood at 5,397 - falling from about 60,000 operators that were posted on relevant intermediary websites in spring of this year.
Last week, foreign tourists carrying luggage left a minpaku accommodation operated by a company affiliated with Tobu Railway Co. near Tokyo Skytree in Sumida Ward, Tokyo. The guests, a 23-yearold British man and a 25-yearold Chinese woman, said they selected the facility because of its convenient location.
The room was clean and comfortable but slightly expensive, they said.
They paid about 30,000 yen (about RM1,602) per night for a room.
After the law came into force, many illegal minpaku operators pulled out of the market, decreasing the number of available properties. However, demand for such accommodations remained strong among foreign visitors.
The decline in the supply of minpaku accommodations has hiked room rates by 50 per cent in Tokyo, according to Kurumi Ishii, a certified administrative procedures legal specialist who has written a book about private lodgings.
In one case, a lodging that cost 20,000 yen per night before the law’s enactment has since soared to 30,000 yen, she said.
Many operators who had previously registered with intermediary minpaku websites have pulled out of the business because of the increased burden. Under the new law, operators can only rent accommodations for a maximum of 180 days a year, which makes it difficult to turn a profit. The law also requires operators to maintain a guest registry.
Some municipal governments impose tougher rules. For instance, operators in Kyoto are urged to consult with city authorities prior to registration - a requirement not stipulated in the new law or a city ordinance. Meanwhile, intermediary websites have taken measures to exclude unregistered operators.
In light of such circumstances, some operators have begun shifting to other businesses.
Since the law came into force, Residence Tokyo, a Tokyo-based real estate firm that develops and operates condominiums for short-term rentals, has received about 200 inquiries from people who are believed to have operated illegal minpaku businesses before the enactment. Some called for help, saying they now had no customers, according to the firm.
Some operators plan to lease the properties that were previously offered as minpaku rentals as regular apartment rentals.
And yet some operators still continue to operate illegally.
Major private lodging intermediary website operator Airbnb requires operators to add the registration numbers provided by local governments to post properties on its website. Even so, the company has found certain operators using fake numbers.
“It takes some time to confirm whether operators have completed proper procedures, making it hard to completely eliminate unlawful operators,” said an Airbnb staff member in charge of the matter. — Yomiuri Shimbun