Slice Tochigi Prefecture’s hotel and ryokan market by municipality and the estimated settled ADR (tax-excluded equivalent) for September 2026 comes out at ¥18,900 in Nasu Town (N=53 properties), ¥17,600 in Nikko City (N=121) and ¥12,000 in Nasushiobara City (N=71), while the prefectural capital, Utsunomiya City, sits at just ¥7,242 (N=51). The rate gap between the highland onsen tier and the capital/business tier has widened to 2.6x, so the investment logic differs completely within a single prefecture. This article lines up the prefecture’s municipal tiers in a single view, then breaks down the room stock of five trade areas (Kinugawa, Shiobara, Nasu, Nikko and Utsunomiya) by decade of opening to show which tier has room for which type of reinvestment. It takes a different angle from our earlier pieces on the 3,574 large-ryokan rooms of Kinugawa-Kawaji Onsen and the roughly 50-room luxury development in Nikko, focusing instead on the prefecture-wide tiers and the age profile of the stock.

Executive Summary — Three Tiers from Highland Onsen to the Capital, with Very Different Stock Ages by Trade Area

The conclusion first. Tochigi’s lodging market has three tiers: a “highland onsen tier” with estimated settled ADR above ¥15,000 (Nasu Town, Nikko City, Nakagawa Town), a “middle tier” around ¥12,000 (Nasushiobara City, Motegi Town), and a “capital/business tier” around ¥7,000 (Utsunomiya, Sano, Oyama, Ashikaga and others). On rates alone, investing in the highland onsen tier looks like the natural choice, but overlaying the age profile of the room stock changes the picture. Within 3km of Kinugawa-Onsen Station, 91.0% of the 3,493 listed rooms opened in the 1990s or earlier, with the 1970s or earlier alone accounting for 57.8%. By contrast, 20.4% of rooms within 2km of Utsunomiya Station opened in the 2020s, and the stock is getting younger. Old buildings are concentrated in the onsen areas and new buildings in the capital: that contrast is the defining feature of Tochigi (even within Nikko City, the 1990s-or-earlier share around Tobu-Nikko Station is 49.5%, lower than Kinugawa, so rates and opening decades do not line up uniformly). Reinvestment potential lies in the former as a “raise rates through renovation” play, and room to absorb new supply lies in the latter as a “capture business demand” play.

Municipal Rate Tiers — Estimated Settled ADR for 21 Cities and Towns in September 2026, from Nasu Town at ¥18,900 to Shimotsuke

We start by lining up the estimated settled ADR of 21 cities and towns in the prefecture for September 2026. Nasu Town tops the list at ¥18,900, followed by Nikko City at ¥17,600 and Nakagawa Town at ¥17,500 (N=5, close to reference-only). Nasushiobara City is at ¥12,000; although it shares the “Nasu” name, the gap to Nasu Town is ¥6,900. It contains the Itamuro and Shiobara onsen areas but also the business demand of Kuroiso and Nishinasuno, which pulls its median down into the middle tier. The capital, Utsunomiya City, is at ¥7,242, alongside Sano at ¥7,000, Oyama at ¥6,500 and Ashikaga at ¥5,900, all within the price band of limited-service business hotels. This tier structure, with Nasu and Utsunomiya at the two poles, was also confirmed in our analysis of Tochigi’s four-layer hotel rate structure; this article changes the angle by overlaying the stock age of each trade area.

Year-on-year changes split by area. Nasu Town (-7.4%), Nikko City (-3.7%) and Nasushiobara City (-4.9%) in the highland onsen and middle tiers fell below the prior year, while parts of the south of the prefecture rose: Sano +5.8%, Ashikaga +10.5% and Oyama +3.6%. Even within the business tier, though, the direction was mixed, with Tochigi City -6.2%, Kanuma -8.0% and Utsunomiya City -4.6%. The prefecture-wide median was ¥10,900 in September 2026 (N=408), up 4.2% year on year; August was ¥11,900 (-4.6%) and October ¥11,500 (+1.6%). The reading is that the summer peak was lower than last year and early autumn recovered.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (September 2026, estimated settled ADR, municipal median; N = number of confirmed-active properties in each municipality; only municipalities with N≥3)

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (estimated settled ADR, tax-excluded equivalent, municipal median; towns with N<3 are reference values)

Mashiko, Shimotsuke, Kaminokawa, Nasukarasuyama and Haga, with N of 1 or 2, are reference values only. Kaminokawa in particular added a 144-room business hotel in 2024, which weakens the continuity of its series, so its year-on-year change is best not read. Nakagawa Town has a small N of 5, but it is centered on the ryokan of the Bato Onsen area and its rate level is close to Nikko City. For reference, in December 2025 and January 2026 Nakagawa’s estimated settled ADR exceeded the all-plan average of listed prices in some months; estimates for months with small samples should be understood to carry this much noise.

Prefecture-Wide Seasonality — An August Peak and February/June Troughs; Summer 2026 Down 4.6% YoY

Plotting Tochigi’s estimated settled ADR by month shows the same shape in 2025 and 2026: August is the annual peak and February and June are the troughs (2024 can only be compared from July onward). The peak has fallen two years running: ¥12,900 in August 2024, ¥12,500 in August 2025 and ¥11,900 in August 2026. The trough in June 2026 was ¥8,600, deeper than ¥9,500 the previous June, and the peak-to-trough gap widened from about ¥3,000 to ¥3,300. In the Japan Tourism Agency’s Overnight Travel Statistics (final figures), Tochigi’s total guest nights in 2025 fell 5.0% year on year to 11.09 million, while room occupancy improved by 2.2 points to 55.2%. It is worth noting that occupancy rose even as guest nights declined.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (Tochigi, median estimated settled ADR. November–December 2026 are estimates based on listed price levels at the time of the survey)

Tracking each area through January–October 2026, Nasu Town has a typical summer profile, falling from a peak of ¥24,700 in August to ¥18,900 in September, with troughs of ¥17,600 in February and ¥17,400 in June. Nikko City shows autumn seasonality, with a peak of ¥19,600 in October second only to ¥19,900 in January, and a trough of ¥14,500 in June. Our analysis of peak months in 16 onsen municipalities also classified Nikko as an October-peak type, and the structure of autumn-foliage demand supporting rates has held again this year. Utsunomiya City stays within a range of ¥6,700 in January to ¥8,900 in October; the swing is small in yen, about ¥2,200, but the peak is about 1.3x the cheapest month. Nasushiobara City’s most recent peak was ¥16,500 in December 2025, with a trough of ¥12,000 in June.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (January–October 2026, median estimated settled ADR by municipality, historical basis only)

Where Supply and Demand Stand — Estimated Occupancy 86.2% in October; Ryokan 87.1%, Business Hotels 87.0%

After rates, we check supply and demand. Estimated occupancy on an OTA listed-inventory basis (Tochigi, all properties) was 85.4% in August 2026, 81.2% in September and 86.2% in October. By category, ryokan held high levels of 87.4% in August and 87.1% in October, while business hotels rose from 79.0% in September to 87.0% in October. Resort hotels filled up in summer at 94.1% in August, then fell to 84.1% in September. The occupancy shown here is an estimate based on how much of the inventory sold on OTAs is taken up, and differs from each property’s actual overall occupancy.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (occupancy is an estimate based on OTA listed inventory. Figures in parentheses are covered properties and rooms, based on listings on major booking sites)

In the Japan Tourism Agency’s final figures, room occupancy at Tochigi’s ryokan was 44.9% in 2025, 8th in Japan. Our estimated ryokan occupancy measures the take-up of inventory released to OTAs, so its level runs higher than the agency’s figure, but both agree that ryokan in the prefecture are steadily selling through their OTA allocations. As shown in our day-of-week analysis of Tochigi business hotels, the business tier has a deep Sunday trough, so reading supply and demand by day-of-week mix is more useful for investment decisions than looking at annual average occupancy.

Opening Decade of the Room Stock — 57.8% of Kinugawa Opened in the 1970s or Earlier; 20.4% of Utsunomiya in the 2020s

This is the core analysis of the article. For five trade areas in the prefecture, we aggregated listed stock, active stock and the room mix by opening decade for lodging facilities with 10 or more rooms within each radius (excluding leisure hotels). Listed stock across the five areas totals 15,918 rooms, of which 12,552 are active (properties with a selling price confirmed on major booking sites in the last three months).

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (within each radius, 10+ rooms, excluding leisure hotels, listed stock as of November 7, 2026. Properties with unknown opening year are shown as “Unknown”)

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (shares are based on rooms in the listed stock. “Active” = properties with a selling price confirmed on major booking sites in the last three months)

The 3km zone around Kinugawa-Onsen Station is a cluster of large ryokan, with 55 listed properties, 3,493 rooms and an average of 63.5 rooms per property. By opening decade, 2,019 rooms (57.8%) date from the 1970s or earlier, 399 from the 1980s and 760 from the 1990s, so 91.0% cumulatively opened in the 1990s or earlier. Only 198 rooms have been added since 2000. A structure where most of the stock is more than a quarter-century old is the very premise of the “who will drive the turnaround” argument in our earlier analysis of large ryokan; here we have been able to quantify it as rooms by decade. That 1,794 of the 2,976 active rooms date from the 1970s or earlier also shows this is an area where old buildings are still earning.

The 5km zone around Shiobara Onsen is defined by polarization. Rooms from the 1970s or earlier are heavy at 700 (35.1%), while rooms opened in the 2020s reach 403 (20.2%), the second-highest share after the Utsunomiya Station 2km zone (20.4%). This appears to include conversions and reopenings of existing ryokan, and the annual trend (on an opening/closure basis) also rises from 1,179 rooms in 2021 to 1,471 in 2026. The Nasu-Yumoto Onsen 5km zone has 104 listed properties and 3,003 rooms, many of them small at an average of 28.9 rooms, and the 1990s form the largest cohort at 1,036 rooms (34.5%). Pensions and resort hotels built during the resort-development era are approaching about 30 years since opening; of the 104 listed properties only 57 are active, a gap of 885 rooms, which suggests many small properties had no selling price confirmed in the last three months.

The Tobu-Nikko Station 3km zone is small, with 46 listed properties and 1,270 rooms, but historic stock including the Nikko Kanaya Hotel (opened 1873) coexists with 351 rooms added since the 2010s. The share with unknown opening year is high at 215 rooms (11 properties), so the decade mix should be read with some latitude. The Utsunomiya Station 2km zone, with 52 listed properties, 6,160 rooms and an average of 118.5 rooms per property, is the only cluster of large business hotels in the prefecture: 1,257 rooms (20.4%) opened in the 2020s, 915 in the 2010s and 1,088 in the 2000s, so rooms from 2000 onward make up 52.9%. On the annual trend (opening/closure basis), stock rose 28.6% from 4,134 rooms in 2017 to 5,317 in 2026, the largest net increase among the five areas (Tobu-Nikko Station 3km +19.1%, Shiobara Onsen 5km +12.3%, Nasu-Yumoto Onsen 5km +4.5%, Kinugawa-Onsen Station 3km -1.0%). Note that the 1,257 rooms from the 2020s include reopenings of existing buildings, such as THE KNOT UTSUNOMIYA (225 rooms), which opened in January 2026 after a full renovation of the former Chisun Hotel Utsunomiya, so not all of them are genuinely new rooms.

Investment Map — Municipal ADR and the Room Stock of Five Trade Areas on One Map

We overlaid the estimated settled ADR by municipality and the stock zones of the five trade areas on a map. Circle size shows the number of confirmed-active properties (N), and color depth shows the estimated settled ADR tier. Each point is a representative location for the municipality (near the municipal office), not a property location.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting. ADR is the September 2026 estimated settled ADR, municipal median. Dashed circles are the radius zones used for the room stock count

The map shows that the highland onsen tier in the north (Nasu Town, Nikko City, Nakagawa Town) and the business tier in the center and south (Utsunomiya, Oyama, Sano, Ashikaga, Tochigi) are also geographically separate. The middle-tier city of Nasushiobara sits at the junction between them, and with a Shinkansen station (Nasushiobara Station) it is positioned to capture both business and onsen demand. The listing of Toyoko Inn Nasushiobara Station West Exit (184 rooms) confirmed in 2026 can be read as a move targeting business demand at this junction.

New Supply and Plans — 10 Properties and 941 Rooms (10+ Rooms) in 2026, Including Three Large Hotels in Utsunomiya

The number of Tochigi lodging properties whose OTA listings we newly confirmed was 55 in 2024, 46 in 2025 and 38 in 2026 (as of November 6). More than half, however, are vacation rentals, cottages and glamping sites with 1–5 units; limited to properties with 10 or more rooms, the figures are 20 properties and 709 rooms in 2024, 19 and 593 in 2025, and 10 and 941 in 2026. 2026 has the fewest properties but the most rooms of the three years, with four properties accounting for 729 rooms: THE KNOT UTSUNOMIYA (225 rooms), Tabino Hotel Utsunomiya Yuinomori (201 rooms), Toyoko Inn Nasushiobara Station West Exit (184 rooms) and Hotel Kanraku Premier Utsunomiya Station East Exit (119 rooms). THE KNOT UTSUNOMIYA, however, is a reopening after a full renovation of the former Chisun Hotel Utsunomiya, so its 225 rooms are not a straight net addition. In 2025, the container-style HOTEL R9 The Yard added 40–52 rooms each at five locations (Kanuma, Tochigi Ohira, Sakura, Moka and Otawara), a notable move to fill out the prefecture’s business tier across a wide area.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting (based on confirmed OTA listings, 10+ rooms. 2026 is as of November 6 and may rise as further listings are confirmed)

Counts based on listing confirmation come in low for the most recent year, because listings appear from a few months before to a few months after opening. Read the 2026 figures on the assumption that they will still rise before year-end. On a planning basis, our records based on building-permit applications in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s Building Starts Statistics include one 14-story, 300-room hotel in Ikegami-cho, Utsunomiya (construction started April 2026, completion scheduled for October 2028, rebuild). As noted in our article on the former Utsunomiya Grand Hotel site, Utsunomiya is a city where lodging facilities grew from 53 to 68 in the five years after that hotel closed, and the 300 rooms in 2028 will stack on top of that. The supply-absorption capacity for this 300-room plan itself is examined from the angles of the LRT extension and business demand in our analysis of the 300-room hotel plan in central Utsunomiya. Because this is based on permit applications as of the survey date, the count is expected to rise as further applications are filed.

New supply in the highland onsen tier, on the other hand, is mainly small and dispersed. Most properties in Nasu Town and Nikko City whose listings were confirmed in 2026 are vacation rentals or cottages; those with 10 or more rooms are limited to UNWIND HOTEL & BAR Okunikko (46 rooms), HOTEL R9 The Yard Nikko Imaichi (60 rooms), Livemax Resort Kawamata Onsen (31 rooms) and a few others. Developments that keep room counts low to command high rates, such as the four-room BLANC NIKKO, are the mainstream, and the pattern continues of large stock being renewed through conversion of existing buildings rather than new construction.

J-REIT Holdings — Four Properties and 758 Rooms in the Prefecture; the Nasu Resort Ran at 97.1% in September

According to our ownership data (as of November 2, 2026), listed hotel REITs hold four properties with 758 rooms in Tochigi. Invincible Investment Corporation owns Hotel Epinard Nasu (310 rooms, acquired for ¥21,002 million in March 2016) and Hotel MyStays Utsunomiya (116 rooms, ¥1,237 million, July 2015); Nippon Hotel & Residential Investment Corporation owns Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Premium Kinugawa Kanko Hotel (172 rooms, ¥3,870 million, December 2017); and Ichigo Hotel REIT Investment Corporation owns Hotel Sunshine Utsunomiya (160 rooms, ¥2,200 million, September 2022).

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research & Consulting from each REIT's monthly operating data (property-level disclosures, September 2026. Acquisition price and date from each REIT's portfolio list; ownership data as of November 2, 2026)

REIT property-level figures are operating results disclosed by each investment corporation, and their aggregation definitions, including the treatment of taxes and service charges, do not necessarily match this article’s estimated settled ADR. Hotel Epinard Nasu’s September 2026 ADR of ¥33,799 and occupancy of 97.1% are about 1.8x Nasu Town’s median estimated settled ADR of ¥18,900; this 310-room resort single-handedly anchors the upper band of the highland onsen tier. Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Premium Kinugawa Kanko Hotel converted a building opened in 1981 into the high-rate, two-meals-included Premium format; its September ADR of ¥46,344 and occupancy of 92.3% are a concrete example that 1970s–80s stock in the Kinugawa 3km zone can reach today’s rate band through a change of operation (though this is one property’s result and a two-meals-included rate, so it should be discounted accordingly). See also our analysis of the Ooedo Onsen Monogatari turnaround model and our acquisition-cohort analysis of Nippon Hotel & Residential Investment Corporation. The two Utsunomiya properties reflect actual conditions in the business tier: in September 2026 Hotel Sunshine Utsunomiya ran at 78.8% occupancy with an ADR of ¥7,780, and Hotel MyStays Utsunomiya at 68.9% with ¥10,414, two strategies with different combinations of price and occupancy. The ADR in this article is an estimate, with a median error of about 7% against REIT-disclosed results.

Land Prices and Policy — Rising in the Capital, Soft in the Highlands; Nasu Town Introduces a Lodging Tax

Land costs move in different directions by area. According to a private aggregation of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s Land Price Publication (2026), Tochigi’s average commercial land price was ¥77,255/㎡, up 0.21% year on year; all uses rose 0.07% and residential land fell 0.18%. The ministry’s own summary of the 2026 Land Price Publication also names Tochigi as a prefecture where commercial land turned “from flat to positive”. By municipality, Utsunomiya City (all-use average ¥88,493/㎡, +1.25%) and Oyama City (¥44,356/㎡, +1.75%) led the rise, while in the 2026 Prefectural Land Price Survey (benchmark land prices), highland onsen tier land was soft: Nikko City -1.47%, Nasu Town -1.43% and Nasushiobara City -0.68%. Price levels in the same survey average ¥20,126/㎡ in Nikko City and ¥12,211/㎡ in Nasu Town, far below ¥83,991/㎡ in Utsunomiya City. The higher the room rate, the cheaper the land; the lower the room rate, the more land prices rise. This relationship means conditions in the highland onsen tier favor a strategy of acquiring and renovating existing buildings.

On the policy side, Nasu Town introduced a lodging tax on October 1, 2026. It has six bands from ¥100 to ¥3,000 depending on the per-person, per-night rate, and, as covered in our analysis of the Nasu and Morioka lodging taxes, the town has set the tax at roughly 1–3% of the room rate. In Nasu Town, where estimated settled ADR is ¥18,900 (about ¥9,400 per person for two guests in one room), most stays fall between the ¥100 band (under ¥10,000 per person per night) and the ¥300 band (under ¥20,000). At the median of ¥9,400, the burden is about 1.1%, so the impact on rates is limited; however, the taxable base is the room-only rate plus service charge, excluding meals and consumption tax, so the band can also change depending on how the rate is split. Revenue is restricted to tourism infrastructure and promotion, and if put to good use it could lift the long-term value of the area. In Utsunomiya, the LRT (Light Line), opened in 2023, passed a cumulative 15 million riders in July 2026, and annual ridership in fiscal 2025 grew 8.8% year on year to 5.57 million. An implementation plan for the westward extension to the west side of JR Utsunomiya Station (about 4.9km, scheduled to open in March 2036, estimated construction cost ¥69.8 billion) has also been submitted to the ministry. One can argue that this expansion of transport infrastructure lies behind the three large hotels added in Utsunomiya in 2026, but THE KNOT UTSUNOMIYA is a full renovation of an existing hotel, and any causal link to the LRT needs to be confirmed case by case.

In Kinugawa Onsen, buildings that have remained closed for long periods have been reported as a local issue. A Nikko City official has explained that demolition costs at least ¥200 million per building, so a turnaround fund taking on Kinugawa’s large stock needs to factor in demolition and downsizing costs on top of the building acquisition price. When renovating Kinugawa’s 1970s-or-earlier stock, also factor in the estimated cost of pre-renovation asbestos surveys. Put the other way, the choice of conversions that make use of the building (format changes like Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Premium Kinugawa Kanko Hotel) is the flip side of these high demolition costs.

Reinvestment Estimate — How Much Extra per Night Recovers a ¥3–8 Million-per-Room Renovation?

To translate the age profile of the stock into reinvestment potential, we made a simple estimate of the ADR uplift needed for a given renovation investment per room. The assumptions are a 7-year payback (10 years as an alternative), 80% occupancy (60% as an alternative) and 365 operating days a year, with the conservative assumption that occupancy after renovation is the same as before. Renovation cost levels are ranges based on benchmarks commonly used in the industry and are no substitute for project-specific quotes.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting estimate (required ADR uplift = investment per room ÷ (payback years × 365 days × occupancy). Simple estimate excluding changes in interest, taxes and operating costs)

We check sensitivity on two axes. The next table puts this article’s base case (7 years, 80% occupancy) in the middle and varies the payback period and occupancy. The 45% stress occupancy reflects the Japan Tourism Agency’s final figure of 44.9% room occupancy for Tochigi ryokan in 2025, which is defined differently from our estimated occupancy based on OTA listed inventory. At this level the required uplift is ¥4,349, about 1.8x the base case, which shows that setting occupancy assumptions from OTA allocation take-up alone tends to make payback look optimistic.

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting estimate (¥5 million per room, 365 operating days a year. ADR ratios are against the September 2026 median estimated settled ADR: Nasushiobara City ¥12,005, Nasu Town ¥18,882)

Source: MetroEngines Research & Consulting estimate (simple payback years = ¥5 million ÷ (ADR uplift × 365 days × occupancy). Dark blue = within 7 years, light blue = within 10 years. ¥6,900 is the gap between the estimated settled ADR of Nasushiobara City and Nasu Town)

The estimates so far assume the full uplift in revenue goes toward payback. If only 70% of the uplift is retained, the base-case required uplift rises to ¥3,495. A ¥2,500 uplift recovers the cost within 7 years only at 80% occupancy or higher; at 60% occupancy it takes 9.1 years.

Recovering a ¥5 million-per-room full renovation in 7 years at 80% occupancy requires an uplift of about ¥2,400 per night. Applied to the municipal tiers, the ¥6,900 gap between Nasushiobara City’s estimated settled ADR of ¥12,000 and Nasu Town’s ¥18,900 exceeds the uplift required for a ¥5 million renovation. If Shiobara’s stock can be brought closer to Nasu Town’s rate band through renovation, the investment pays back within these assumptions. Note that Kinugawa lies within Nikko City, so the city median (¥17,600) already includes Kinugawa’s own rates and cannot be measured with the same yardstick. That 2020s openings (including conversions) reach 20.2% in the Shiobara Onsen 5km zone, and that a REIT-owned property in Kinugawa achieves an ADR of ¥46,344 in the Premium format, are pointers to the direction of travel; but the latter is a two-meals-included rate that may include food and beverage, so it cannot be compared directly with a room-only uplift. In Utsunomiya’s business tier, by contrast, against an estimated settled ADR of ¥7,242 even a ¥3 million light refresh requires a ¥1,500 uplift, equal to 20% of the rate. For reinvestment in the business tier, it makes more sense to focus on improving the day-of-week mix and on the capacity to absorb new supply than on rate uplift. This is a simple estimate; actual investment decisions require a detailed feasibility study.

Municipal Investment Map — Three Tiers, Three Investment Types

The implication for developers is that, in Tochigi, the combination of “buying old buildings where rates are high and building new where rates are low” fits the prefecture’s structure better than “building new where rates are high”. For regional banks and turnaround funds, note that the 2,719 rooms of 1970s-or-earlier stock in Kinugawa and Shiobara (the two areas combined) are a pool likely to surface as building-reuse turnaround deals precisely because demolition is so costly. As with the drop on the final night of a holiday weekend shown in our booking-curve analysis of the October three-day weekend, looking at the shape of daily demand as well as rates makes post-renovation occupancy assumptions more realistic.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Which city or town in Tochigi has the highest estimated settled ADR?

A. On the September 2026 estimated settled ADR (municipal median, tax-excluded equivalent), Nasu Town is highest at ¥18,900 (N=53), followed by Nikko City at ¥17,600 (N=121) and Nakagawa Town at ¥17,500 (N=5). The prefectural capital, Utsunomiya City, is at ¥7,242 (N=51).

Q. How old are the lodging buildings in Tochigi?

A. It varies greatly by area. Within 3km of Kinugawa-Onsen Station, 91.0% of the 3,493 listed rooms opened in the 1990s or earlier, with the 1970s or earlier alone accounting for 57.8%. Within 2km of Utsunomiya Station, by contrast, 2020s openings reach 20.4%, and rooms from 2000 onward make up just over half (52.9%).

Q. Is new hotel supply in Tochigi increasing?

A. Properties with 10 or more rooms whose OTA listings we newly confirmed numbered 20 properties and 709 rooms in 2024, 19 and 593 in 2025, and 10 and 941 in 2026 (as of November 6), with 2026 centered on three large hotels in Utsunomiya (225 of those rooms are a reopening after full renovation of an existing hotel). On a planning basis, a 300-room hotel in Ikegami-cho, Utsunomiya (completion scheduled for October 2028) has been confirmed.

Q. Do J-REITs own any hotels in Tochigi?

A. According to our ownership data (as of November 2, 2026), four properties with 758 rooms: Hotel Epinard Nasu and Hotel MyStays Utsunomiya (Invincible Investment Corporation), Ooedo Onsen Monogatari Premium Kinugawa Kanko Hotel (Nippon Hotel & Residential Investment Corporation) and Hotel Sunshine Utsunomiya (Ichigo Hotel REIT Investment Corporation).

Methodology and Sources

Estimated settled ADR by municipality and prefecture is the median of estimated settled rates (tax-excluded equivalent), derived by applying a segment-specific adjustment factor to the lowest-plan level each property publishes on major booking sites. Figures up to September 2026 use the settled historical basis, and November onward use the listing snapshot as of November 6, 2026. N = number of properties we confirmed as active; towns with N<3 are reference values. Estimated occupancy is based on OTA listed inventory (coverage: properties listed on major booking sites in Tochigi; 401 properties and 15,057 rooms in October). Room stock covers properties with 10 or more rooms, excluding leisure hotels, within the radius of each of the five areas; “active” means a selling price was confirmed in the last three months (September–November 2026), as of November 7, 2026. Opening decades are based on the opening year in our database, with unknowns shown separately. New supply is based on confirmed OTA listings, and plans on our records from building-permit applications in the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s Building Starts Statistics. Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR for REIT properties are transcribed from the property-level September 2026 results disclosed by each investment corporation.

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