Bruised by the fallout from the global financial turmoil and signs the tourism industry is shrinking, international luxury hotels in Tokyo are trying to diversify their slim guest portfolios to weather the current crisis.
The fortunes of the top-notch foreign hotels that have piled into the Japanese market in recent years are in tatters, with the boom shattered by the subprime mortgage meltdown that drove away their key corporate clients from the United States and Europe.
"The management environment of super luxury hotels in Tokyo is changing dramatically," said Tomohiko Sawayanagi, managing director of hotel investment advisory firm Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels in Japan.