Dowbrigade

In what could be a very interesting retirement investment opportunity,
the ailing "Love Hotel" industry in Japan is looking for foreign investors.
Since new erections are so expensive in a fevered real-estate market
like Japan’s, refurbishing and renovating existing hotels looks like
the way
to go. However, the recent Durex
sex survey, which shows Japanese
have LESS sex than any other developed nation, may introduce a note of
caution.

TOKYO — Japan’s ”love hotels" are
hard to miss. Clustered around freeway ramps and dotting the suburbs,
the
neon-lit
hotels often
look
like faux castles or garish villas from the Arabian Nights.

Sniffing for opportunities, foreign investors such as Miro Mijatovic are scouting
love hotels for signs of distressed ownership and tallying the couples
entering each day as a way to estimate revenues.

What they say they have found is an industry any investor could cherish.
Most love hotels are mom-and-pop businesses with an average of 10 to
25 rooms,
although some have as many as 80. Chains are few, usually with
no more than two dozen hotels each. In general, rooms rent for two or
three hours, averaging about $66 a stay. Overnight stays are possible
at a higher rate.

from the Boston
Globe