Saga Prefecture has a lodging price map that runs the opposite way from the rest of Kyushu: the prefectural capital is the cheapest place to stay, while a fishing town on the Ariake Sea and the hot-spring stations of the Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen are the most expensive. By municipality, MetroEngines Research’s estimated settled ADR (median) for September 2026 was ¥24,700 in Tara (famous for Takezaki crab), ¥18,900 in Ureshino, ¥16,500 in Karatsu and ¥13,700 in Takeo, while Saga City, the capital, came in at only ¥8,500 and Tosu at ¥6,700. This article maps that four-tier structure and its monthly trend, then layers on the Japan Tourism Agency’s final 2025 figures, the build-up of estimated occupancy toward November, the 40 new openings of 2024–26, land prices and disaster risk. Finally, it works backward to the ADR required for a 100-room business hotel and a 30-room onsen ryokan to pencil out in each municipality.

Room stock in this article covers lodging properties with 10 or more rooms (excluding leisure/love hotels) within a 2,000 m radius of each market’s center (3,000 m for Ureshino Onsen only). “Operating” means a property whose selling price was confirmed on major booking sites in the last 3 months (August–October 2026) (as of October 25, 2026, compiled by MetroEngines Research). Estimated settled ADR is final through September 2026; months from October onward are not used for this article’s conclusions.

Key Points — An Inverted Price Map: Cheapest in the Capital, Highest at Onsen Stations and a Fishing Town

Municipal Price Tiers — Reading Tara, Ureshino, Karatsu, Takeo and the Capital on a Map

We begin by placing the prefecture’s rate distribution on a map. By median estimated settled ADR, Tier 1 is Tara (¥24,700), a ryokan district for Takezaki crab facing the Ariake Sea, where all nine properties are covered. Tier 2 pairs Ureshino (¥18,900) and Karatsu (¥16,500), but their make-up differs. Ureshino is an onsen town where 27 ryokan push the median up, while Karatsu is a port city mixing 22 ryokan, 9 business hotels and 4 resort hotels. Tier 3, Takeo (¥13,700), is home to Takeo-Onsen Station on the Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen; with 13 ryokan, 3 business hotels and 4 resort hotels in the same city, its median falls between the ryokan and commercial segments. Tier 4 consists of the commercial cities of Saga (¥8,500), Tosu (¥6,700) and Imari (¥6,600). Of Saga City’s 54 properties, 11 are business hotels and 16 are ryokan, but by room count the station-front business hotels make up most of the market. For a similar breakdown of the price hierarchy between a prefectural capital and its onsen towns by market, land price and room stock, see Kagoshima’s Capital Is Its Cheapest: ADR ¥6,819 vs Kirishima ¥14,330.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (municipalities show the median estimated settled ADR for September 2026; property dots are the 76 operating properties in five markets, April–September 2026 average)

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting. N = properties covered by the estimated settled ADR / properties confirmed listed in the month. Kashima is a reference value (N=2). Towns with fewer than 5 covered properties (Kohoku, Kamimine, Kanzaki, Yoshinogari, Taku, Ogi) are not used in this article’s conclusions

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (September 2026, median estimated settled ADR by municipality)

The year-on-year signs are worth a comment. Karatsu’s +23.7% is measured against a trough: September 2025 (¥13,300) dropped sharply from August of that year (¥18,900). Comparing August with August, 2025 and 2026 were both ¥18,900, essentially flat. Saga City’s −15.2% reflects a fall from ¥10,100 in September 2025 to ¥8,500 in September 2026, and all four months from June to September came in below the prior year. Yet Saga City’s estimated OCC in September was 86.0% (25 properties / 1,436 rooms, based on major booking-site listings), the highest in the prefecture, which suggests pricing that continues to prioritize occupancy over rate. This combination—functioning as the receptacle for business demand while leaving room to raise rates—leads directly to the feasibility conditions for the 100-room model discussed below.

Seasonality — Ureshino Peaks in Nov–Jan and August, Karatsu in August, Tara in December

Beyond the level of rates, where the peaks fall during the year differs by municipality. Ureshino in 2025 showed three autumn-winter peaks—¥23,100 in November, ¥23,800 in December and ¥22,400 in January (2026)—and August reached the same height at ¥22,800. The trough is June (¥18,200 in 2025, ¥16,600 in 2026), a peak-to-trough gap of about ¥7,000. Karatsu’s only clear peak is August, reaching the same level two years running (¥18,900 in 2025 and 2026), while November (¥13,100 in 2025) is one of its weakest months. This shows that Karatsu Kunchi (November 2–4) fills city inventory for a few days but does not last long enough to lift the monthly average rate. Tara peaks in December (¥30,100 in 2025) and January (¥27,900 in 2026), the Takezaki crab season, and bottoms in October (¥19,200 in 2025)—a pattern fully tied to the seafood calendar. Saga City is highest in January (¥12,300 in 2026) and in November during the Balloon Fiesta (¥11,000 in 2025), and lowest in June–July. For how Balloon Fiesta lodging demand spreads by distance from the venue, see Saga Balloon Fiesta 2026: 2,567 Rooms Within 10km, 12,157 Within 30km, which lays out room counts and price results by distance band.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (median estimated settled ADR by municipality; 2026 is final through September. Ureshino N=31–33, Karatsu N=30–35)

From an investment perspective, this seasonality means that onsen ryokan in Ureshino and Takeo earn their core income in autumn and winter, and lifting summer and June is pure upside. Karatsu has a strong summer-resort character, so the center of its pricing strategy is how far the August level of ¥18,900 can be extended across the year. Tara reaches around ¥30,000 in December–January, the highest in the prefecture, making it a location where even a small room count can command high rates; but as October’s ¥19,200 shows, building off-season demand is what smooths earnings.

The Demand Base — Saga’s Occupancy and Guest Nights in the JTA’s Final 2025 Figures

We anchor the long-term level of demand in the Japan Tourism Agency’s Overnight Travel Statistics, 2025 annual figures (final). Saga’s room occupancy for 2025 was 52.4%, 34th in Japan, down 5.6 points from 2019 and up 1.0 point year on year. By property type, ryokan ran at 37.7% (26th), resort hotels 61.4% (10th), business hotels 73.9% (16th) and city hotels 69.4% (22nd), against national figures of 38.2%, 56.9%, 75.3% and 74.1% respectively. Resort hotels beat the national average by 4.5 points and business hotels came within 1.4 points of it; what drags the overall figure down is the weight of simple lodgings (9.6%) and ryokan.

Source: Prepared by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from the prefectural tables of the Japan Tourism Agency’s Overnight Travel Statistics, 2025 annual figures (final), published July 2026

Total guest nights in 2025 were 2,356,860, +0.5% year on year and −15.9% versus 2019. Japanese guests accounted for 2,105,260 (−0.5% YoY, −13.8% vs 2019) and foreign guests for 251,600 (+9.7% YoY, −30.0% vs 2019), leaving the foreign share at just 10.7%. While Japan’s foreign guest nights nationally have grown to +55.6% versus 2019, Saga remains at 70% of its 2019 level, and that gap is the remaining upside. According to Saga Prefecture, international flights at Saga Airport expanded in 2025: the Taipei route increased to three round trips a week (90.0% load factor), the Shanghai route was increased to four round trips a week from July (75.5%), and the Seoul route moved to morning departures and arrivals (78.8%). A fuller lineup of short-haul routes is a demand-side tailwind both for the Tier 2 onsen towns and for the Tier 4 capital.

Estimated OCC and Booking Curves — Ureshino, Takeo and Karatsu Are Over 70% Booked for November at LT45, About 80% at LT30

We check the current supply-demand balance with our estimated OCC (based on OTA-listed inventory). In September 2026, estimated OCC was 80.3% for the prefecture as a whole (101 properties / 3,589 rooms, based on major booking-site listings), 85.1% for business hotels (19 properties / 1,811 rooms) and 75.5% for ryokan (58 properties / 1,219 rooms). By municipality, Saga City was at 86.0% (25 properties / 1,436 rooms), Karatsu 80.4% (25 / 619 rooms), Takeo 78.9% (11 / 188 rooms) and Ureshino 68.7% (21 / 647 rooms): high-priced Ureshino has the lowest occupancy. Bear in mind that these are estimates based on how OTA-sold inventory is absorbed and differ from properties’ actual occupancy (rooms not listed are counted on the sold side, so the figures run high).

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (fixed cohort of properties listing at least 30% of total rooms on OTAs. For November, LT45 averages 30 stay dates; LT30 averages November 1–22, the stay dates observed at the time of research)

For the November-stay booking curve, LT45 was averaged over all 30 stay dates in the month, and LT30 over the 22 stay dates (November 1–22) already observed at the time of research. Ureshino (28 properties / 953 rooms) built from 72.6% at LT45 to 80.5% at LT30; Karatsu (28 / 576 rooms) went from 73.6% at LT45 to 79.7% at LT30; and Takeo (14 / 429 rooms) from 76.9% at LT45 to 82.4% at LT30. At LT10 and below, only the November 1–2 stay dates could be observed at the time of research, so those points are not used for monthly trends. All three cities were already more than 70% booked at LT45; in November, when the autumn foliage season, Karatsu Kunchi and the Kyushu Fukko Oen-wari travel subsidy overlap, the operator’s question is at what rate to sell the remaining 20–30% close in. Observations more than 45 days before the stay date are excluded because they include the period before allotments are loaded. For the lead time at which business hotels in the prefecture filled for a national-scale event, Sanfair SAGA 2026: Saga Biz Hotels 98.4% Day 1, 74.1% Day 2 tracks the movement down to the final eight days.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (November 2026 stays, LT45→LT9. LT30 is the average of 22 observed stay dates; LT10 and below average November 1–2 only. Estimated OCC = 100 − remaining rooms ÷ total rooms, observed as of October 24, 2026)

Location, Land Prices and Disaster Risk — Saga City +6.9% and Tosu +5.4%, Onsen Towns Flat

Land prices set the denominator of the investment. In a tally based on MLIT’s Land Price Publication (as of January 1, 2026), Saga Prefecture’s average land price was ¥49,894/m², up 3.61% year on year, with Saga City (¥81,985/m², +6.92%) and Tosu (¥58,326/m², +5.43%) leading the rise. The onsen towns stand in contrast: Takeo at ¥36,150/m² (+1.49%; around Takeo-Onsen Station, the combined average of published and benchmark land prices is ¥44,266/m², +3.32%), Ureshino at ¥35,150/m² (+0.59%; commercial land average ¥47,350/m²) and Karatsu at ¥34,967/m² (+1.43%) all moved only about 1%. That land prices are calmest in Tiers 1 and 2, where room rates are highest, means land acquisition stays under about 10% of total investment in onsen developments; in the model below, land for the 30-room case comes to about ¥110M, only 7% of the total.

Source: Prepared by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from a municipal tally of land-price data based on MLIT’s Land Price Publication (2026), Saga Prefecture disaster prevention materials and Saga City’s tsunami evacuation plan. No standard-site tally of published land prices is available for Tara

Disaster risk should be viewed separately for coastal and inland areas. Ureshino, Takeo and Tosu are inland and outside tsunami and storm-surge zones, but Karatsu faces the Genkai Sea, and Tara and southern Saga City face the Ariake Sea. The storm-surge inundation map Saga Prefecture publishes for the Ariake side is a worst-case simulation assuming a typhoon with 900 hPa central pressure, and needs to be checked site by site as a risk separate from tsunami. Under the prefectural scenario cited in Saga City’s tsunami evacuation plan, the city’s maximum tsunami height is 0.48 m, so the main risk on the Ariake side is storm surge rather than tsunami. On the Karatsu side, the practical step is to overlay the prefecture’s tsunami and storm-surge inundation maps on MLIT’s Hazard Map Portal.

Supply — 40 New Openings in 2024–26 Are Mostly Small; No Large Projects in the Planning Pipeline

We track supply through two sources. New openings in Saga confirmed by MetroEngines Research through listings on major booking sites numbered 9 in 2024, 12 in 2025 and 19 in 2026 (through October 22). Narrowing to properties with 10 or more rooms, however, gives 4 properties / 213 rooms in 2024, 8 / 342 rooms in 2025 and 5 / 81 rooms in 2026; 13 of the 19 openings in 2026 were small properties of 1–9 rooms such as vacation rentals, hostels and cottages. The 342 rooms of 2025 include commercial hotels—58 rooms in front of Tosu Station, 41 in Kanzaki and 40 in Kashima—as well as ryokan: 131 rooms in front of Takeo-Onsen Station, 24 in Karatsu and 18 in Ureshino. The 2026 openings with 10+ rooms are a 22-room ryokan in Ureshino (private open-air baths in every room), 20-room and 17-room properties in Imari, an 11-room guesthouse in Ureshino and an 11-room property in Karatsu; commercial hotel openings were zero. The 126 rooms in Tosu are a brand conversion—a renovation and rebrand of an existing hotel, as stated in IHG’s July 2025 release—and are not counted as net additions.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (OTA-listing basis; room counts of properties newly confirmed as listed in 2024–2026, excluding the 126-room brand conversion in Tosu. Listings appear from a few months before to after opening, so 2026 figures may rise with future listings)

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (OTA-listing basis, N=40 properties). Because this is based on listing confirmation, it includes properties that took a new name after a change of operator or a renovation reopening

Stacking rooms by municipality, Karatsu has the most at 18 properties / 172 rooms, but 11 of the 18 are vacation rentals, cottages and similar with 1–3 rooms, and the remaining 7 are just 56, 38, 24, 12, 11, 8 and 8 rooms. Takeo added 2 properties / 133 rooms, Tosu 2 / 149 rooms (plus the separate 126-room brand conversion), Ureshino 4 / 79 rooms and Saga City 3 / 20 rooms. That the capital added only 20 rooms in three years must be read together with the fact that 1,545 of the 1,713 rooms (16 operating properties) within 2 km of the station—90%—are existing stock opened in the 1980s–2000s.

Forward supply is tracked through building-confirmation applications in MLIT’s Building Construction Dynamics Survey, but no lodging plans with 10 or more rooms were registered for Saga at the time of research (October 2026). Since building confirmation is usually filed one to two years before opening, this is a lower bound on the premise that future filings will add projects, not proof that no plans exist. Projects confirmed in public materials include GOTEN Resort’s Oku-Ureshino Mumeidaki in Ureshino, opening autumn 2026 (22 rooms, all with private open-air baths); Hoshino Resorts’ KAI Ureshino, scheduled for summer 2027 (28 rooms); and THE NINE STATES HOTEL KARATSU CASTLE overlooking Karatsu Castle (8 rooms, opened August 2026)—all high-rate properties with fewer than 30 rooms. Against 989 operating rooms within 3 km of Ureshino Onsen, the 22 + 28 rooms added in 2026–27 represent a net increase of about 5%, supply that enters directly into the upper band of Tier 2.

Positioning — The Empty Price Bands Revealed by Rooms × ADR for 76 Properties in Five Markets

Breaking municipal medians down to the property level shows which price bands are filled and which are empty. For 76 properties—within 2 km of Saga Station (16 operating properties, 1,713 rooms), 2 km of Tosu Station (5 properties, 599 rooms), 2 km of Karatsu Station (17 properties, 776 rooms, one of which is not covered by the estimated settled ADR), 3 km of Ureshino Onsen (26 properties, 989 rooms) and 2 km of Takeo-Onsen Station (13 properties, 596 rooms)—we plotted the April–September 2026 average estimated settled ADR against room count.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (76 operating properties in five markets; estimated settled ADR is the monthly average for April–September 2026; room count on a logarithmic axis. Blue box = Gap 1, navy box = Gap 2)

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (2,000 m radius; 3,000 m for Ureshino Onsen only. Operating properties with 10+ rooms; one property in the Karatsu Station market is excluded because its estimated settled ADR could not be calculated)

There are two gaps. First, within 2 km of Saga Station, 1,611 of the 1,713 rooms sit in the under-¥10,000 bands; the ¥10,000–15,000 band has zero properties, and ¥15,000 and above has only one city hotel with 102 rooms. Within 2 km of Tosu Station, all five properties (599 rooms) are under ¥10,000, and there are no rooms at ¥10,000 or more. Business demand has plenty of capacity, but neither the capital nor Tosu has a property to capture the ¥10,000–15,000 that business travelers’ lodging caps, upper-tier corporate contracts and weekend leisure demand will pay. Second, within 2 km of Karatsu Station, the over-¥20,000 segment is five properties with 62 rooms, made up of 10–20-room culinary inns. Against summer-resort demand that lifts the city median to ¥18,900 in August, there is no property with more than 20 rooms commanding over ¥20,000, so high-rate family and group demand tends to flow to central Fukuoka or the Itoshima side.

The 3 km radius around Ureshino Onsen is the opposite, with properties spread across every band above ¥10,000: 4 properties / 220 rooms at ¥10,000–15,000, 5 / 260 rooms at ¥15,000–20,000, 8 / 225 rooms at ¥20,000–30,000 and 6 / 198 rooms at ¥30,000 and above. The leaders by April–September 2026 estimated settled ADR are inns of 20–36 rooms such as Ureshino Yasoya (36 rooms, ¥46,400), Ureshino Onsen Taishoya Shiibasanso (20 rooms, ¥41,500) and Banshokaku Shikishima (34 rooms, ¥39,900). In the Takeo-Onsen Station market, Onyado Chikurintei (11 rooms, ¥75,700), URARI Takeo Garden (19 rooms, ¥46,700) and Shiseki Ryokan Kagetsu Taishokan (12 rooms, ¥45,500) form a band above ¥40,000. The 2026–27 new supply of 22- and 28-room inns with private open-air baths in every room joins precisely this upper band.

100-Room and 30-Room Models — By Required ADR, Saga City Clears the Line; Tosu Falls Short

Finally, we work backward to the required ADR for placing a property in the empty bands. The assumptions follow published figures. Construction cost uses the 2024 all-structure average for hotel construction of ¥1.95M per tsubo based on MLIT’s Building Starts Statistics (RC ¥1.738M, steel ¥1.650M); given that this level is up 41% in two years from ¥1.38M in 2022, we also show a case 20% higher. GOP margin is set at 45% for limited-service hotels and at two cases, 20% and 30%, for onsen ryokan (both are this article’s assumptions, reflecting the segment difference that room-revenue-centered commercial hotels tend to run higher and ryokan with heavy F&B and bathing loads lower). Occupancy uses the JTA’s final 2025 figures for Saga—business hotels 73.9%, resort hotels 61.4%—as annual values, land is the municipal average published land price times site area, and the target is a 6% GOP yield on total investment.

Source: Estimates by MetroEngines Research & Consulting based on MLIT Building Starts Statistics (2024), MLIT Land Price Publication (2026) and JTA Overnight Travel Statistics (final 2025 figures). GOP margin 45%, annual occupancy 73.9%, GOP yield 6%

A 100-room business hotel requires total investment of about ¥1.58bn (¥15.82M per room), required revenue of ¥211M and a required ADR of ¥7,800. Saga City’s September 2026 median of ¥8,500 exceeds this, so a new property targeting the empty ¥10,000–15,000 band would pencil out with room to spare. However, if construction costs rise 20%, the required ADR climbs to ¥9,300, beyond the median level, so rate design in the empty band is a precondition. In Tosu, the required ADR of ¥7,700 exceeds the ¥6,700 median, so the model does not work in the existing price band; the key is whether the location—a junction of the Kyushu Shinkansen at Shin-Tosu Station and the expressway network—can be repositioned in the band around ¥10,000. Karatsu’s median is ¥16,500, but the estimated settled ADR of the seven commercial properties (425 rooms) within 2 km ranges from ¥5,000 to ¥13,400, and six of them (402 rooms) are at ¥8,100 or below, so for a commercial hotel on its own the required ADR of ¥7,600 is a borderline level.

Source: Same assumptions as the previous table. Resort hotel annual occupancy 61.4% (JTA final 2025 figure for Saga), GOP yield 6%

A 30-room onsen ryokan with private open-air baths in every room, assuming 45 m² rooms, requires total investment of about ¥1.55bn (¥51.78M per room) and a required ADR of ¥69,300 at a 20% GOP margin or ¥46,200 at 30%. The estimated settled ADR achieved by top properties within 3 km of Ureshino Onsen in April–September 2026 (¥39,000–46,000) and by top properties in the Takeo-Onsen Station market (¥45,000–76,000) sits in the same band as the 30% case. In other words, the market already shows that small high-rate inns can work in Ureshino and Takeo, and success hinges less on rate than on whether operating efficiency reaches a 30% GOP margin. With 35 m² rooms and a 60% room-area ratio, total investment falls to about ¥1.14bn and the required ADR at a 30% GOP margin drops to ¥33,800, which works at the rates achieved by Ureshino’s ¥30,000-and-above band (6 properties, 198 rooms). Karatsu requires ¥46,200 at a 30% GOP margin, but existing properties above ¥20,000 are limited to 10–20-room culinary inns, so the same 30-room plan presupposes creating its own off-summer demand.

This is a simplified estimate; actual investment decisions require a detailed feasibility study. FF&E, pre-opening costs, accommodation tax, fixed asset tax and management fees are not included, and construction cost is the 2024 national average without adjustment for regional or structural differences.

Investment Summary — Direction and Risks by Municipality

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from MetroEngines Research & Consulting, Japan Tourism Agency and MLIT materials

Source: Estimates by MetroEngines Research & Consulting (assumptions as described in the text)

Source: Estimates by MetroEngines Research & Consulting. Blue figures meet the 6% GOP yield target; the shaded cell is the base case (ADR ¥8,500, annual occupancy 73.9%). ¥7,800 is the required ADR, ¥8,500 is Saga City’s September 2026 median, and ¥10,000–12,000 is the Gap 1 price band

Viewed on two axes, at Saga City’s current median of ¥8,500 the yield falls below 6% once annual occupancy drops under about 68%, whereas selling at ¥10,000—the lower end of Gap 1—secures 6.7% even at 65% occupancy. The table also shows that new-build success in the capital is decided less by high occupancy than by the design of the price band.

In summary, Saga’s investment map converges on two choices: “recapture rate in the capital” or “join the upper band in the onsen towns.” The former fills the upper-midscale commercial gap on the back of deep demand and rising land prices; with a required ADR of about ¥7,800 against a target band of ¥10,000–15,000, it has ample rate headroom. The latter depends on whether operating efficiency can keep pace with the over-¥40,000 band that top inns in Ureshino and Takeo have proven, and competition will intensify as the 50 rooms added in 2026–27 target the same band. Karatsu’s over-¥20,000 × more-than-20-rooms segment is the largest gap, but without a design for year-round demand it carries the risk of summer dependence. In every case, rising construction costs are holding back new supply, and repricing existing stock through renovation is likely to move ahead of new construction.

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