“Hotels in Tokyo go for around ¥20,000-something”; “Hakone runs in the ¥50,000s.” Most figures like these that circulate in market articles and the news are averages of the selling prices listed on booking sites. The room rates used in business plans, real estate appraisals and REIT disclosures, by contrast, are settled rates: what one room actually sold for. Both get called the “going rate,” yet their levels are completely different. Measured in August 2026, the gap was 2.26x at the national median, ranging from 1.71x to 2.87x depending on the prefecture.

This article compares two rate series, listed price and estimated settled ADR, across 47 prefectures × 4 property categories, and quantifies where the ratio between them grows largest. The aim is not to explain rate levels themselves, but to provide a yardstick for converting the numbers in circulation into numbers you can use for your own decisions.

There Are Two “Going Rate” Series: Listed Price and Estimated Settled ADR

MetroEngines Research tracks about 168,000 properties in Japan, of which about 27,000 properties (about 1.26 million rooms) with confirmed activity on major booking sites form the analysis universe. Two rate measures with different characteristics can be calculated from this population.

The first is listed price. For a given date, the prices of all plans a property is selling are averaged, these are accumulated by property and by day, and the area median is taken. Because it is the asking price actually on the market, it is the most straightforward indicator for seeing how rooms are priced and how deep the plan lineup is. But this average mixes in, with equal weight, high-priced peak-season plans, pre-holiday rates, and premium plans bundling meals or activities. A plan that remains listed because it has not sold also counts as one plan in the average.

The second is estimated settled ADR. Starting from each property’s lowest-plan level, the settled level is estimated by applying adjustment factors validated by property category, and data from two major booking sites are combined to stabilize it. Checked against the settled ADR that listed hotel REITs disclose by property (91 properties, most recent 3 months), the median error is about 7%, on a pre-tax equivalent basis. Because it corresponds to actual room revenue, this is the series to use for business plans, appraisals and REIT comparisons. The definition of ADR itself and its levels by category are covered in What Is Hotel ADR? Settled Rates vs Listed Prices and 2026 Levels by Category.

In other words, for the same area there are two answers at once: “the asking price on the market” and “the rate rooms actually sell at.” The problem is that the distance between the two differs greatly by area and by property category.

Ratio Map of 47 Prefectures: From 1.71x in Tokyo to 2.87x in Akita

We calculated the ratio for all 47 prefectures using finalized August 2026 data. One caution: the two series cover different sets of property categories. Listed price covers every tracked category, while estimated settled ADR is limited to validated categories: business, city, resort, ryokan and capsule. A simple comparison without aligning categories lets differences in category mix leak into the ratio.

This article therefore calculates the ratio by category and uses the average weighted by each category’s number of covered properties as the prefecture ratio. On this basis, the ratio peaks at 2.87x in Akita, bottoms out at 1.71x in Tokyo, and has a median of 2.26x. 33 of the 47 prefectures fall within the 2.1-2.5x range, so the distribution is fairly concentrated.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

The top ranks are regional prefectures with a high share of ryokan: Akita 2.87x, Iwate 2.65x, Yamagata 2.59x and Kagoshima 2.59x. At the bottom are areas with deep urban lodging demand: Tokyo 1.71x, Osaka 1.73x, Kyoto 1.88x and Fukuoka 1.91x. In regional hot-spring and tourist destinations, taking listed price at face value as the “going rate” means looking at a number close to 3x the actual settled level.

Chiba shows the effect of aligning categories most clearly. A simple overall comparison without aligning categories gives Chiba a ratio of 3.47x, the highest in Japan (1,140 properties on the listed side, 422 on the settled side). Aligned and weighted by category, it falls to 2.16x, equivalent to 35th nationwide. The listed-price side includes accommodations priced per whole building or per party size; dividing directly by the settled side, which excludes them, inflates the ratio. When comparing ratios across areas, always align categories.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team (August 2026, finalized month. Each category is aggregated only for cells with 20 or more covered properties. N is the total of covered properties across categories.)

Ratio by Property Category: Business Hotels 1.91x, Ryokan 2.54x

Property category is the strongest determinant of the ratio. Aggregating category-level data for the 47 prefectures produces a neat progression.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team (August 2026. Prefecture × category cells with 20 or more covered properties.)

Business hotels have a median of 1.91x, with a narrow interquartile range of 1.83-2.00x. Their median listed price is ¥15,500 and median estimated settled ADR ¥7,900. The ratio widens step by step: city hotels 2.08x, resort hotels 2.55x, and ryokan 2.54x. The ryokan maximum is 3.54x, more than 1.6 times the minimum of 2.17x.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

The practical implication is clear. In an area dominated by business hotels, reading listed price as a little under half gets you roughly to the settled level. Apply the same conversion to an area dominated by ryokan and resorts, however, and you overstate revenue by more than 30%. The rule of thumb of “roughly 2x everywhere” works for urban markets but not for hot-spring resorts.

Where Does the Ratio Come From? Breaking It Into Four Factors

We break down why the ratio varies by category and area into four factors.

Factor 1: Tax-basis difference (about 1.10x). Listed price includes tax, while estimated settled ADR is a pre-tax equivalent, the same basis as REIT disclosures. This definitional difference alone adds about 1.10x. Removing it from the national median of 2.26x leaves a real gap of about 2.06x on the same tax basis. When reading the ratio, it helps to mechanically strip out this 10% first.

Factor 2: Breadth of the listed plan price range. Because listed price averages all plans, properties listing many premium plans have an average far above their lowest plan. Measuring this spread as “all-plan average ÷ lowest plan” gives 1.41-1.70x in hot-spring/ryokan markets and 1.72-1.83x in urban business/city markets. Surprisingly, the plan spread itself is wider in urban markets. This factor cannot explain the category gap in the ratio.

Factor 3: Distance between the lowest plan and the settled level. This is what creates the category gap. “Lowest plan ÷ estimated settled ADR” is 0.94-0.95x in urban business/city markets, meaning the estimated settled level sits slightly above the lowest plan. Once the tax basis is aligned, actual settled levels in urban markets largely overlap with the range of lowest plans. In hot-spring/ryokan markets, by contrast, it is 1.36-1.59x: even the lowest plan sits at 1.4-1.6x the settled level.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team (August 2026, finalized month. Medians calculated at property level for properties of the relevant categories in each market.)

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

At urban business hotels, the lowest plan is not a limited allotment but close to the everyday best-seller, and most daily occupancy is sold around it. At ryokan, where one night with two meals is the norm, the listed plan lineup itself tends to skew toward pre-holiday, peak-season and premium-dining plans, so even the lowest listed plan sits above the actual average settled level. The category gap in the ratio is determined less by “what plans are listed” than by “where the lowest of those plans sits.”

Factor 4: The rate level itself. Even within the same category, the lower an area’s rates, the larger the ratio. The correlation coefficient between estimated settled ADR level and the ratio was −0.736 for ryokan, −0.660 for city hotels, −0.630 for business hotels and −0.530 for resort hotels, all clearly negative. In areas with thin demand, high-priced plans that stay listed without selling tend to push the average up, widening the distance between listed price and the settled level.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Category mix alone does not explain the ratio well. The correlation between each prefecture’s “share of ryokan and resort properties” and its category-weighted ratio was only 0.495 (R² 0.245). Oita has a ryokan/resort share of 77.2% but a ratio of 2.26x, while Nagano has 77.7% and 2.40x; a high share alone does not make the ratio jump. Both category and rate level need to be considered.

The Ratio Is Stable Over Time: Can It Serve as a Conversion Factor?

To use the ratio as a practical yardstick, it needs to be stable over time. Tracking the monthly median ratio for business hotels across all 47 prefectures over 13 months, it barely leaves the 1.90-2.00x range. The low was 1.90x in January 2026 and the high 2.00x in June 2026.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Seasonal swings are small; the ratio is better seen as a structural value set by market and category. It therefore has some practical use as a conversion factor of the form “the ratio for this area and category is about N x.”

There are two caveats, however. First, the ratio must not be applied to individual properties. The ratios in this article are area × category medians; at the property level they vary widely with how inventory is released and how plans are structured. Second, in some areas the ratio itself drifts slowly. Chiba’s simple-comparison ratio widened from 2.89x in August 2025 to 3.47x in August 2026 in one year. Because the ratio moves when the composition of the listed population changes, it is safer to recheck it each time rather than treat it as a fixed constant.

Comparison With Official Statistics: Lodging CPI Sits Between Listed and Settled

Placing the two series next to official statistics gives a sense of which is closer to the “true going rate.” The lodging component of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ Consumer Price Index (2020 = 100) is an index based on actually surveyed prices.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, “Consumer Price Index” (lodging, 2020 = 100)

Lodging CPI for July 2026 was 169.1, +2.0% from 165.8 a year earlier. For the same July 2026, our data on the business hotel median across all 47 prefectures shows listed price up +3.9% YoY and estimated settled ADR up +0.7%. On the 2020-base series, growth in the official statistic sits between the two series. However, from the July 2026 release the ministry switched the published index to a 2025 base, on which lodging rose +0.9% YoY, close to the growth in estimated settled ADR. Because a base revision changes the index’s calculation basis, the relative position depends on which base you compare against.

On either base, listed price growth (+3.9%) is the largest, showing that listed prices tend to overstate growth rates. Price increases show up first in listed prices, but whether they carry through to settled rates is another matter. When discussing year-on-year change, putting the two series side by side is more informative. A phase in which only listed prices rise while settled rates stay flat suggests that price increases may not yet be fully absorbed by demand. Note also that CPI is published with a lag of about two months, so it cannot be used to compare the most recent month. Over the medium to long term, lodging CPI and settled rates have diverged considerably: over the past three years, lodging CPI rose +25.6% while settled rates rose +10.9%.

Practical Guide: Which Number Should You Use?

Here is which series to use for which purpose. The principle is simple: use estimated settled ADR where revenue, earnings or appraisal is involved, and listed price for pricing, competitor checks and the guest’s perspective.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

The most error-prone moment is setting room revenue assumptions in a pre-opening business plan. If a figure picked up from public sources, such as “the going rate in this area is ¥30,000,” is based on listed prices, the actual settled level could well be around ¥12,000-¥15,000. However carefully you set the occupancy assumption, the plan will not hold up if the rate assumption is off by 2x.

Conversely, looking at estimated settled ADR is pointless when you want to check competitor pricing. What readers and guests see on comparison screens is the listed price, and plan design should be discussed at that level. The two series differ in purpose, not in quality.

In practice, the procedure has four steps: (1) confirm which series the figure you found belongs to; (2) if it is based on listed prices, divide it by the ratio for the relevant area and category; (3) align the tax basis (listed prices include tax); and (4) check the resulting level against settled-basis figures such as REIT disclosures. For the level at which appraisal assumptions are set, hotel REIT appraisal values and cap rate distributions are also a useful reference.

Summary

Most figures circulating as “hotel going rates” are based on listed prices, and their level differs from the rates used for business plans and investment decisions. Measured in August 2026, the category-aligned ratio had a national median of 2.26x, ranging from 1.71x in Tokyo to 2.87x in Akita. About 1.10x of this is the tax-basis difference; the real gap on the same basis is about 2.06x.

The ratio is driven mainly by two axes: property category and rate level. The category gap is clear (business hotels 1.91x, city hotels 2.08x, resort hotels 2.55x, ryokan 2.54x), and within the same category, lower-rate areas have larger ratios (correlation −0.736 for ryokan). Decomposing it, the spread of listed plans explains almost none of the category gap; the difference is concentrated in “how far the lowest plan sits from the settled level”: 0.94-0.95x in urban markets versus 1.36-1.59x in hot-spring/ryokan markets.

The ratio was stable across 13 months (national median for business hotels 1.90-2.00x) and can be used as an area × category conversion factor. Good practice, however, is not to apply it to individual properties and to recheck it each time, on the assumption that the population mix can change.

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