Kochi Prefecture’s lodging stock is concentrated in the prefectural capital: Kochi City holds just over 60% of the prefecture’s rooms. Meanwhile, along the Monobe and Niyodo river basins and on the eastern and western coasts, small properties with few rooms and high rates are scattered across the map. In this article we average the estimated settled ADR compiled by MetroEngines Research & Consulting by municipality over the 12 confirmed months (September 2025 to August 2026), then overlay the rate tiers of 25 municipalities with segment mix, supply, demand-supply balance and site conditions to identify which price bands and areas in the prefecture leave a gap for investment.

This article is the Kochi edition of our prefecture-by-prefecture investment map series (which also covers Oita, Ishikawa, Nagasaki, Nara and others). Unlike a Shikoku comparison that lines up the four prefectural capitals side by side, the subject here is the tier structure of municipalities within Kochi Prefecture. Brand conversions such as the ANA Crowne Plaza Kochi rebranding are outside its scope. Tsunami risk from a Nankai Trough earthquake is treated only as one column in the site assessment table, not as a main theme.

Prefecture-wide estimated settled ADR is ¥7,900, +4.7% YoY

Start with the prefecture-wide level. Average estimated settled ADR over the 12 confirmed months (September 2025 to August 2026) is ¥7,900, up 4.7% from ¥7,600 in the preceding 12 months (September 2024 to August 2025). The number of properties covered each month ranged from 116 to 124, and there was no month in the series in which the population changed substantially.

By month, the peak is August, at ¥9,400 in August 2026 (+3.1% YoY), followed by November. November 2025 came in at ¥8,800, 8.7% above the prior year (¥8,100). June, on the other hand, is the usual trough, and June 2026 stayed at ¥7,000 (−1.0% YoY). In other words, rates in Kochi have a seasonal pattern of “rising in the summer and autumn travel seasons and settling in the rainy season”, but the monthly swing is around ¥7,000–9,400, which is moderate when averaged across the prefecture.

Rate tiers across 25 municipalities — from ¥21,900 in Kami City to ¥4,700 in Aki City

Now break it down by municipality. Ranking the 25 municipalities for which estimated settled ADR could be calculated by their 12-month average, rates in the prefecture split into four broad tiers. Note, however, that many outlying municipalities have only 1–2 properties in the estimate, so the composition of a single property swings the value substantially. The table below therefore marks municipalities with 2 or fewer properties in the estimate, or without all 12 months, as “reference values”.

Tier 1 is led by Kami City at ¥21,900 (4 properties in the estimate, 8 listed), the highest among municipalities with a meaningful number of properties. It is centred on onsen ryokan and small resort-style properties in the Monobe River basin, and its monthly min–max of ¥19,400–23,800 keeps the swing within 1.22×. Tosa City ¥24,200 (2 properties in the estimate), Niyodogawa Town ¥23,600 (2), Nakatosa Town ¥23,100 (1) and Tsuno Town ¥19,100 (1) also sit in this tier, but note that in each case the rates of one or two properties become the municipal value as they are. In other words, the “small-scale, high-rate properties of the river basins and coast” are not an area-wide market rate but scattered pockets of high rates created by individual properties.

Tier 2 is the coastal and suburban band at ¥8,000–11,000+; among municipalities with a meaningful number of properties, it includes Muroto City ¥8,600 (3 properties in the estimate), Tosashimizu City ¥8,100 (9) and Nankoku City ¥8,000 (3). Tier 3 is the prefectural capital, Kochi City, at ¥7,900 (60), whose depth of properties in the estimate stands out in the prefecture. Tier 4 consists of the hub cities of the west and east: Shimanto City ¥6,900 (10), Susaki City ¥6,100 (4), Sukumo City ¥4,900 (6) and Aki City ¥4,700 (3). In these cities the properties in the estimate are mainly business hotels, and they serve value-oriented business and touring demand.

The strength of seasonality also differs by tier. Kochi City ranges from ¥6,900 to ¥9,600 by month (max ÷ min = 1.38×); business demand supports the floor, so the swing is small. By contrast, Muroto City ranges ¥6,800–11,000 (1.62×), Shimanto City ¥5,900–9,200 (1.57×) and Tosashimizu City ¥6,700–10,100 (1.50×): the more a coastal city relies on tourism, the larger the gap between peak and off-peak. Sukumo City (1.25×) and Susaki City (1.20×) have modest rate levels but are notable for how stable they are throughout the year.

Breaking it down by segment — Kochi City has 4,376 business-hotel rooms; the outlying areas are dispersed among small ryokan and whole-house rentals

Behind the rate tiers lie differences in segment mix. Aggregating by segment the 274 properties and 9,028 rooms in the prefecture whose prices were confirmed on OTAs and similar channels over the last 12 months, business hotels account for 69 properties and 5,771 rooms, or 63.9% of rooms. Of these, 46 properties and 4,376 rooms are concentrated in Kochi City. The reason Kochi City’s rate sits almost exactly at the prefectural average is that this thick business-hotel stock forms the median.

The outlying areas (everything outside Kochi City) have 185 properties and 3,296 rooms, and a completely different mix. There are 35 ryokan with 561 rooms and 7 resort hotels with 386 rooms, while vacation rentals and cottages number 46 properties but only 84 rooms (1.8 rooms per property on average). By property count, the outlying areas lean heavily towards whole-house rentals and minshuku; by room count, ryokan and a handful of resorts carry the high-rate tier.

Next, we organised the 130 properties and 8,019 rooms for which estimated settled ADR can be calculated by price band × segment. Price bands here are based on each property’s 12-month average estimated settled ADR.

What this table shows is that the price distribution in the outlying areas splits in two, between “¥6–9k” and “¥13k and above”, and that the ¥9–13k band in between is extremely thin at 8 properties and 239 rooms. High rates in the outlying areas are carried by ryokan and resorts, and the low-to-mid bands by business hotels, so mid-priced limited-service hotels and casual ryokan have not formed a tier of their own. Kochi City is the reverse: its upper band is thin, with 9 properties and 759 rooms at ¥13,000 and above (13.7% of rooms in the estimate).

The nature of supply — rooms within 5km of central Kochi +7.6% in 9 years; 2026 openings are one large hotel and 10 small ones

Movement on the supply side is gradual. Rooms within a 5km radius of Harimayabashi grew from 5,350 rooms at 68 properties in 2017 to 5,757 rooms at 82 properties in 2026, +7.6% in 9 years. After rising to 5,689 rooms in 2020, the count fell to 5,541 in 2024 and turned upward again in 2026.

The 2026 increase was driven by a 209-room business hotel that opened in Kochi City in February, adding 4.1% to the prefecture’s existing 64 business hotels with 5,116 rooms. There are 11 openings with 223 rooms in the prefecture in 2026 (including one scheduled for October), but apart from the 209-room property, the other 10 are small properties of 1–3 rooms, totalling just 14 rooms.

In other words, new supply in 2026 is polarised between “one large business hotel in the capital” and “an accumulation of whole-house rentals and small inns in the outlying areas”; no new inns of 10–30 rooms have been observed in the outlying areas. 2025 was similar: apart from a 158-room business hotel that opened in Susaki City in September, openings were mainly guesthouses and vacation rentals of 1–6 rooms. The construction-plan data we reference (MLIT Building Construction Statistics) showed no large lodging projects in Kochi Prefecture as of the survey date. Note, however, that this data is based on building-confirmation applications and skews towards projects above a certain size, so small projects and plans not yet at the application stage are not included.

Let us check the effect of added supply on prices. Kochi City’s estimated settled ADR grew strongly from September 2025 to January 2026, at +7.4% to +15.6% YoY, but from February 2026, when the 209 rooms were added, growth slowed to −0.3% to +6.7%. Note, however, that spring and summer 2025, the comparison base, was a period when tourism in the prefecture was lifted by the broadcast of the NHK morning drama Anpan, so the high base is also likely contributing to the slower growth. Out-of-prefecture visitors to Kochi numbered 4.57 million in 2025 (+3% YoY), the second-highest level under the current estimation method.

Demand and supply — estimated OCC of 89.7% in August 2026, the highest of Shikoku’s four prefectures

Compare how tight demand and supply are using estimated OCC. In August 2026 Kochi Prefecture came in at 89.7% (89 properties / 4,959 rooms, listed on major booking sites), above Tokushima at 87.4%, Ehime at 85.0% and Kagawa at 83.9%. In June and July too, Kochi was at the highest level of the four Shikoku prefectures. By segment, business hotels in August were at 88.3% (30 properties / 3,192 rooms) and ryokan also at 88.3% (22 properties / 656 rooms), so both segments are high.

The gap between peak days and weekdays can be seen in the booking curves. On August 11 (Tue, public holiday), the second day of the main Yosakoi Festival, estimated OCC had already reached 95.2% at LT45 and stayed nearly full through to 99.6% at LT1. The weekday of August 26 (Wed), by contrast, started at 56.3% at LT45 and built up towards the stay date, reaching 73.8% at LT7 and 87.9% at LT1. Saturday, August 22 sat in between, rising from 70.2% at LT45 to 98.2% at LT1.

Peak days such as festivals and holiday weekends are almost full 45 days out, so the room to raise rates on those dates is decided by “which price band’s inventory you hold in depth ahead of time”. The next section tests this by overlaying how quickly each price band sold out with its room count.

Identifying the gap — the ¥9–13k band in the outlying areas has 239 rooms, and 94% sold out 30+ days ahead of Yosakoi

Here we use inventory movements over peak periods to look for price bands that sell out early yet have limited rooms. We cover two periods, the Yosakoi Festival (4 nights, August 9–12, 2026) and Golden Week (4 nights, May 2–5, 2026), both of which are past, so the results are final. Among properties with inventory data, those whose OTA allocation is 30% or more of total rooms (65 properties for Yosakoi; the top 100 of 105 properties for Golden Week) were grouped by price band of estimated settled ADR.

In the outlying areas’ ¥9–13k band, 15 of the 16 dates observed during Yosakoi (94%) sold out 30 or more days before the stay date, and 14 of those were already sold out 45 or more days ahead. During Golden Week too, the share of dates reaching sell-out was 53%, more than double the other price bands in the outlying areas (22–26%). Yet this band has only 239 rooms in the estimate, 9.7% of the outlying total. The sample is small at 4–5 properties, but the same tendency showing up across two finalised peaks can be read as a signal that the rooms available to absorb demand are limited.

In Kochi City, 61% of dates in the ¥9–13k band and 57% at ¥13,000 and above reached sell-out during Golden Week, outperforming the core ¥6–9k band (48%). Kochi City’s ¥13k+ band has 9 properties and 759 rooms (13.7% of rooms in the estimate), so the upper band is not deep. However, observations at ¥13,000 and above cover only 2 properties, so no conclusion as strong as for the outlying areas can be drawn; it is treated strictly as a candidate.

Site assessment — comparing 4 locations on residents, workers, land prices and tsunami inundation

To see in which locations the gap bands are most likely to work, we compare four points: the centre of the prefectural capital (Harimayabashi), Nakamura in Shimanto City and Tosashimizu in the west, and Muroto in the east. Resident population is counted within a 1,500m radius and working population within 1,000m; land prices are from the nearest commercial official land price point; and for tsunami and flooding we checked whether the representative point falls within an assumed inundation area in MLIT’s published data.

The differences in the numbers are clear. Central Kochi concentrates 25,911 employees and 2,881 establishments within a 1,000m radius, and its office-type share of 21.1% is far above the other points in the prefecture. The way weekday business demand underpins business-hotel occupancy also shows up in the small monthly rate swings. Nakamura in Shimanto City has 4,848 employees, giving it depth as a business and touring hub for the west of the prefecture. Tosashimizu and Muroto, by contrast, have 1,200–1,900 employees and an office-type share of around 5%, so business demand is limited and lodging demand follows the seasonality of tourism.

Resident population in central Kochi is projected to fall from 34,828 in 2025 to 29,645 in 2040 (−19.7% vs 36,912 in 2020), but the two coastal points in the outlying areas face much steeper declines of −39.0% (Tosashimizu) and −48.9% (Muroto). When considering a small new build in the outlying areas, it is the operating side rather than the demand side, namely securing staff and the operating model (unstaffed operation, joint operation with nearby properties and so on), that sets the assumptions of the revenue plan.

Land prices show the difference in entry point for investment. Commercial land at Honmachi 5-chome in Kochi City rose modestly from ¥168,000/m² in 2021 to ¥171,000/m² in 2026 (+1.8% vs 2021), and the prefecture’s highest point, Honmachi 1-chome, is at ¥273,000/m² (+3.0% YoY). The three outlying points, on the other hand, declined gently by 2.5–6.4% over five years, with Tosashimizu and Muroto in the low ¥30,000s. In the outlying areas, where land accounts for a small share of cost, most of the total investment goes into the building and interiors, so construction cost estimates and room-rate design sit at the centre of the economics.

On the disaster side, the representative points of coastal Tosashimizu (3m to under 5m) and Muroto (1m to under 2m) fall within tsunami inundation assumption areas. The representative points of central Kochi and Nakamura in Shimanto City are outside the tsunami assumption areas, but both fall within flood inundation assumption areas at the maximum assumed scale. Because the type of hazard differs by location, the practical point is to vary what goes into building specifications and BCP by site, such as placing electrical equipment on upper floors and evacuation planning.

Investment implications — acquire and renovate in Kochi City, small new builds in the outlying areas

Now to connect the analysis so far to investment approaches. The thick business-hotel stock of Kochi City and the small-scale, high-rate properties of the outlying areas are completely different in character, and the approaches that suit them differ too.

In Kochi City, the business demand that supports weekdays is already thick and monthly rate swings are small. Rather than piling up rooms through new construction, then, acquiring an existing business hotel and renovating some rooms to a higher grade to extend the rate band from ¥9–13k to ¥13k and above is the approach most consistent with demonstrated demand. Several dates a year, such as the Yosakoi Festival and Golden Week, are almost full 45 days out, and upper-grade rooms can take on the role of lifting rates on those dates.

In the outlying areas, the existing high-rate tier is limited to a small number of ryokan and resorts, and new openings in 2025–2026 have been skewed towards whole-house rentals of 1–3 rooms. The inns in between, at 10–30 rooms and ¥9–13k, have limited rooms relative to how quickly they sell out in peak periods, making this the tier where the numbers most clearly point to a small new-build investment opportunity. However, with a peak-to-off-peak gap of 1.5–1.6× and rapid population decline, the prerequisite is to design, as a set, peak-season inventory, off-season demand creation and an operation that can run with a small team.

Summary

Lodging rates in Kochi Prefecture fall into four tiers: small-scale, high-rate properties in the river basins and on the coast (Kami City ¥21,900 and others); mid-rate coastal and suburban areas (Muroto City ¥8,600, Tosashimizu City ¥8,100); the business-and-tourism core of the capital (Kochi City ¥7,900); and value-oriented hubs in the west and east (Shimanto City ¥6,900, Sukumo City ¥4,900, Aki City ¥4,700). Kochi City holds 63.5% of the prefecture’s rooms, centred on 4,376 business-hotel rooms.

By segment × price band, the ¥9–13k band in the outlying areas is thin at 8 properties and 239 rooms, and during Yosakoi 94% of its dates sold out 30 or more days before the stay date. In Kochi City, the upper band at ¥13,000 and above is thin at 759 rooms (13.7%). Estimated OCC in August 2026 was 89.7%, the highest of Shikoku’s four prefectures, so demand and supply are tight. As investment approaches, lifting the rate band by acquiring and renovating business-hotel stock in Kochi City, and small new builds of 10–30 rooms in the outlying areas, are each consistent with the data.

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