With one week left until the 2026 Obon peak (August 13 check-in), how far has OTA-published inventory been absorbed across Kyushu’s six prefectures? Aggregating remaining rooms on a room basis for 1,544 properties in Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Oita, Nagasaki, Saga and Kagoshima, the absorption rate against inventory released to OTAs stands at 73.0% in Fukuoka versus 41.3% in Kagoshima — a gap of 31.7 percentage points. In this window, 16 days after the Reiwa 8 Kumamoto Earthquake of July 28, we read where demand is concentrated and where capacity to accept guests remains.

One week before the Obon peak, Kyushu’s six prefectures split by 31.7 points

First, the overall picture. For the August 13 check-in, we extracted only properties publishing at least 30% of their total room count to OTAs and summed their remaining rooms on a room basis. The scope covers 1,544 properties across Kyushu’s six prefectures, with a combined OTA-published allotment of 39,334 rooms. Of these, 15,150 rooms currently remain, giving a six-prefecture average absorption rate of 61.5% against published allotment.

By prefecture the ranking is clear. Furthest along is Fukuoka at 73.0%, followed by Kumamoto at 71.5%. Then come Saga at 59.5%, Nagasaki at 53.6% and Oita at 52.6%, with the most headroom remaining in Kagoshima at 41.3%. The gap between top and bottom reaches 31.7 percentage points.

Re-basing the denominator on total room count, the estimated OCC produces the same order: Kumamoto 85.1% and Fukuoka 83.5% versus Kagoshima 63.9% (all for the August 13, 2026 check-in, observed August 5–6, 2026, N=1,544 properties). In other words, this gap reflects a difference in the actual depth of demand rather than a difference in how allotments are released to OTAs. Demand within Kyushu can also move asymmetrically across prefecture lines — in 2016, cancellations spread well beyond the areas that felt the strongest shaking, a pattern worth keeping in mind when reading the figures below.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (August 13, 2026 check-in, N=1,544 properties)

Table 1: OTA-published allotment absorption and estimated OCC across Kyushu’s six prefectures (August 13, 2026 check-in / observed August 5–6, 2026 / N=1,544 properties)

Prefecture	Properties	Total rooms	OTA allotment	Remaining rooms	Absorption rate	Estimated OCC	Median remaining-room rate
Fukuoka	339	24,126 rooms	14,742 rooms	3,984 rooms	73.0%	83.5%	15.1%
Kumamoto	297	9,932 rooms	5,196 rooms	1,481 rooms	71.5%	85.1%	25.0%
Saga	100	3,301 rooms	1,996 rooms	809 rooms	59.5%	75.5%	20.6%
Nagasaki	202	9,093 rooms	5,311 rooms	2,464 rooms	53.6%	72.9%	23.6%
Oita	355	10,461 rooms	6,031 rooms	2,856 rooms	52.6%	72.7%	21.9%
Kagoshima	251	9,849 rooms	6,058 rooms	3,556 rooms	41.3%	63.9%	33.3%
Six-prefecture total	1,544	66,762 rooms	39,334 rooms	15,150 rooms	61.5%	77.3%	—

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (August 13, 2026 check-in, observed as of August 5–6, 2026)

Building the sample — prefecture-level bulk aggregation cannot place the six prefectures side by side

The first stumbling block in this kind of inter-prefecture comparison is sample design. Pulling an inventory ranking at the prefecture level caps the query scope itself. In fact, five of the six prefectures covered here hit the same ceiling of candidate properties (800 properties) under a prefecture-level query. Only Saga stayed below the cap. Calculating a “share of sold-out properties” in that state measures the share within a set already narrowed to the top ranks, and compares prefectures whose samples have different characteristics.

This article therefore split the six prefectures into 216 municipal divisions, queried each one, and built the total from the property level with duplicates removed. As a result, a candidate count that had been capped at 800 properties per prefecture expanded to 9,038 properties across the six prefectures, of which inventory movement could be observed for 2,871 properties. Narrowing further to properties publishing at least 30% of their total room count to OTAs leaves 1,544 properties. For Saga, the municipality-level build-up matched the prefecture-level query exactly (536 candidates, 182 observed properties), confirming that this method functions as a full-population count.

It is also worth stating explicitly that properties whose OTA-published allotment is below 30% of total room count are excluded. A small published allotment can arise from several situations: channel operations centered on direct sales through the official site, call centers or travel agencies; a practice of adding inventory in small increments as check-in approaches; or a contractually small OTA allocation. In any of these cases, “few rooms remaining on OTAs” does not necessarily mean the property is full, so such properties are excluded from a like-for-like supply-demand comparison.

From LT60 to LT7 — the pace at which bookings accumulate splits by prefecture

To see when the absorption gap emerged, we extracted only properties observable at all four points — LT60, LT30, LT14 and LT7 — as a fixed panel, and tracked remaining rooms at each point as a ratio against OTA-published allotment. Because the sample does not move between points, apparent swings caused by changes in the number of observed properties are eliminated. A comparable framework, used to isolate date-level troughs by lead time, also appears in Shimane Obon 2026: Only Aug 15-16 Dip; Aug 22 Business Hotels 90.9%.

At LT60 (mid-June), remaining-room rates across the six prefectures fell within a range of 67–85%, with Kumamoto slightly ahead at 67.1% and little difference otherwise. By LT30 (mid-July), however, Fukuoka had fallen to 51.5% and Kumamoto to 51.6%, while Kagoshima stayed at 68.1%. At LT14 (around July 30), Fukuoka stood at 32.6% and Kumamoto at 33.5%, versus Kagoshima 55.2%, Nagasaki 50.4% and Oita 50.1%. The gap opened during the month from LT60 to LT30.

Then at LT7, Kagoshima alone reversed direction, with a remaining-room rate of 57.8% against 55.2% at LT14. In absolute rooms within the fixed panel, the figure rose from 3,239 to 3,390 rooms — an increase of 151 rooms — which is best read as last-minute cancellation returns plus additional inventory released to OTAs by properties themselves. As a rule of thumb, sustained returns of five or more rooms indicate additional release by the property, while one-off returns of one or two rooms indicate cancellation churn; an increase on the order of 151 rooms prefecture-wide leans strongly toward the former. For travelers hunting last-minute availability, this is a phase in which choices widen.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (August 13 check-in, fixed panel observable at all four points: Fukuoka 321 / Kumamoto 229 / Oita 312 / Nagasaki 171 / Saga 88 / Kagoshima 218 properties)

The four days of Obon — August 13 is the peak, and headroom returns by August 16

Aggregating the four days from August 13 to 16 by the same method, every prefecture peaks on August 13 and declines in absorption toward August 16. The steepness of that decline, however, varies considerably by prefecture.

The steepest is Oita, falling 21.7 percentage points from 52.6% on August 13 to 30.9% on August 16. Fukuoka also drops 26.0 points from 73.0% to 47.0%, with remaining rooms in absolute terms rising 2.3-fold from 3,984 to 9,005. Nagasaki falls 19.3 points from 53.6% to 34.3%.

By contrast, Kumamoto runs 71.5% → 63.3% → 62.3% → 59.1%, holding around 60% throughout the four days. Its decline of 12.4 points is the flattest of the six prefectures. That suggests demand accumulating across the whole period, unlike the general pattern in which Obon homecoming and leisure demand concentrates on August 13.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (properties publishing at least 30% of total rooms to OTAs on each date: Aug 13 N=1,544 / Aug 14 N=1,575 / Aug 15 N=1,605 / Aug 16 N=1,755)

Broken out by property type, the structure hidden behind prefectural averages emerges

Prefectural averages are strongly influenced by property-type composition. A prefecture with many ryokan and one with many business hotels mean different things at the same absorption rate. Below is the August 13 check-in broken out by property type.

Table 2: OTA-published allotment absorption by property type (August 13, 2026 check-in / property counts in parentheses / N=1,544 properties)

Prefecture	Business hotel	City hotel	Resort hotel	Ryokan	Other
Fukuoka	73.3% (159)	79.1% (18)	90.0% (7)	56.2% (38)	64.7% (117)
Kumamoto	87.4% (58)	59.9% (7)	49.4% (9)	49.6% (132)	42.5% (91)
Saga	54.9% (18)	77.8% (3)	67.0% (6)	63.3% (51)	59.3% (22)
Nagasaki	45.9% (55)	82.5% (9)	67.3% (23)	44.7% (36)	59.4% (79)
Oita	49.3% (49)	45.1% (8)	53.0% (21)	62.3% (176)	53.1% (101)
Kagoshima	40.5% (72)	43.9% (8)	52.4% (18)	38.8% (43)	38.6% (110)

Figures are allotment absorption rates; property counts in parentheses. Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (August 13, 2026 check-in)

What stands out is Kumamoto’s business hotels, where 58 properties have absorbed 87.4% of published allotment — the highest level of any property-type segment across the six prefectures. At the same time, ryokan in the same prefecture sit at 49.6% and the “other” category (minshuku, simple lodgings, pensions and the like) at 42.5%, both below the prefectural average. Kumamoto’s prefectural average of 71.5% is a figure lifted by the weight of business hotels; ryokan and small lodgings retain capacity to accept guests.

Oita shows the inverse structure: its 176 ryokan sit at 62.3%, above the prefectural average of 52.6% and above business hotels at 49.3% and city hotels at 45.1%. As the prefecture containing Beppu and Yufuin, its Obon peak demand appears to lean toward the ryokan side. In Nagasaki, nine city hotels stand out at 82.5% while business hotels sit at 45.9% and ryokan at 44.7% — a spread suggesting that separate markets are moving within each property type.

At municipality level, demand peaks and headroom coexist within the same prefecture

Lining up absorption rates one level finer, at the municipality level, reveals the unevenness that prefectural averages had smoothed over. We extracted 37 areas with at least 10 aggregated properties and at least 100 rooms of OTA-published allotment.

Table 3: OTA-published allotment absorption by municipality (August 13, 2026 check-in / selection from all 37 areas with at least 10 properties and at least 100 rooms of OTA allotment)

Area	Properties	OTA allotment	Remaining rooms	Absorption rate
Kokurakita Ward, Kitakyushu City (Fukuoka)	13	1,341 rooms	142 rooms	89.4%
Chuo Ward, Kumamoto City (Kumamoto)	31	1,807 rooms	266 rooms	85.3%
Kikuchi City (Kumamoto)	13	157 rooms	25 rooms	84.1%
Munakata City (Fukuoka)	10	269 rooms	45 rooms	83.3%
Karatsu City (Saga)	22	285 rooms	60 rooms	78.9%
Yatsushiro City (Kumamoto)	10	266 rooms	68 rooms	74.4%
Hakata Ward, Fukuoka City (Fukuoka)	114	5,611 rooms	1,435 rooms	74.4%
Hirado City (Nagasaki)	15	253 rooms	66 rooms	73.9%
Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City (Fukuoka)	74	3,305 rooms	971 rooms	70.6%
Kokonoe Town (Oita)	29	146 rooms	48 rooms	67.1%
Sasebo City (Nagasaki)	25	1,075 rooms	389 rooms	63.8%
Yufu City (Oita)	119	694 rooms	266 rooms	61.7%
Beppu City (Oita)	105	1,883 rooms	782 rooms	58.5%
Nagasaki City (Nagasaki)	47	1,740 rooms	738 rooms	57.6%
Kirishima City (Kagoshima)	43	682 rooms	375 rooms	45.0%
Aso City (Kumamoto)	19	278 rooms	159 rooms	42.8%
Oita City (Oita)	26	1,745 rooms	1,046 rooms	40.1%
Kagoshima City (Kagoshima)	58	3,405 rooms	2,244 rooms	34.1%
Minamiaso Village (Kumamoto)	26	134 rooms	91 rooms	32.1%
Isahaya City (Nagasaki)	14	557 rooms	403 rooms	27.6%

Selected from areas with at least 10 aggregated properties and at least 100 rooms of OTA-published allotment (37 areas in total). Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research

In absolute room terms, the largest remaining capacity to accept guests is in Kagoshima City at 2,244 rooms, followed by Hakata Ward, Fukuoka City at 1,435 rooms, Oita City at 1,046 rooms, Chuo Ward, Fukuoka City at 971 rooms, Beppu City at 782 rooms and Nagasaki City at 738 rooms. Kyushu’s major urban areas still hold several hundred to two thousand rooms of allotment even on the Obon peak date, leaving meaningful room to capture last-minute demand.

Differences within a single prefecture are large as well. In Oita, absorption has progressed on the onsen side, with Yufu City at 61.7% and Beppu City at 58.5%, while Oita City stays at 40.1%. In Kumamoto, Chuo Ward of Kumamoto City at 85.3%, Kikuchi City at 84.1% and Yatsushiro City at 74.4% contrast with Minamiaso Village at 32.1%, Aso City at 42.8% and Minamioguni Town at 41.0% — a structural split between urban areas and the Aso region. Nagasaki likewise spans more than 40 points within one prefecture, from Nagasaki City at 57.6%, Sasebo City at 63.8% and Hirado City at 73.9% down to Isahaya City at 27.6%.

How to read Kumamoto’s figures — the premise of 16 days after the earthquake

The observation point of this article falls 16 days after the Reiwa 8 Kumamoto Earthquake, which occurred at 16:27 on July 28, 2026. Reading Kumamoto’s figures on the same yardstick as other prefectures requires several caveats.

First, estimated prefectural OCC for July 2026 (all property types, monthly average) stands at 84.2% for Kumamoto (as of July 2026, N=436 properties), behind Fukuoka at 91.1% and Saga at 85.4%. However, immediately after the earthquake, on July 29, 2026, Kumamoto’s estimated OCC rose to 90.4% (as of July 29, 2026), and that figure cannot be read directly as a surge in real demand. At that point, properties that had sustained damage suspended sales, shrinking the OTA-side denominator (listed inventory) itself, so numerator and denominator of the occupancy rate were moving at the same time. Looking at actual remaining rooms (absolute room counts), Kumamoto ran 2,411 rooms on July 28, 1,988 on July 29 and 2,143 on July 30, 2026 — a sharp decline from 4,867 rooms on July 26, but a figure that includes both the weekday-weekend difference and listing suspensions. Isolating the occupancy rate alone for comparison leads to misreading.

The disappearance of inventory immediately after the earthquake is examined in detail in Kumamoto Quake 2026, 72 Hours On: 6 Closures vs 17.9% Inventory Loss.

For the forward window of August 13–16 covered here, by contrast, the number of observable properties is stable across the four days, and no discontinuity from listing withdrawals can be identified. The number of properties whose inventory movement could be observed at the prefecture level ranged from 348 to 349 in Kumamoto, with little day-to-day variation, so for this window it is fair to conclude that no “apparent tightness” is occurring.

On that basis, Kumamoto’s characteristics can be summarized in two points. First, the 87.4% absorption rate of its 58 business hotels is higher than any property type across the six prefectures. Second, the 12.4-point decline from August 13 to 16 is the flattest of the six prefectures, indicating demand that does not depend on the Obon peak-and-trough pattern and persists across the period. This is consistent with recovery-related medium- to long-stay demand concentrating in urban business hotels. The municipality-level lineup — Chuo Ward of Kumamoto City at 85.3%, Yatsushiro City at 74.4% and Kikuchi City at 84.1% — points the same way.

Conversely, Kumamoto’s ryokan (132 properties, 49.6%), its “other” category (91 properties, 42.5%) and the Aso region (Aso City 42.8%, Minamiaso Village 32.1%, Minamioguni Town 41.0%) retain substantial capacity to accept guests. In capturing leisure demand from across Kyushu, these areas have room to grow.

Properties that released their allotment in full and filled it — 148 properties reaching zero remaining rooms on August 13

Individual property movements are worth looking at too. For the August 13 check-in, 148 properties across the six prefectures still had inventory at LT30 and subsequently reached zero remaining rooms. By prefecture: Fukuoka 42, Oita 39, Kumamoto 31, Nagasaki 14, Kagoshima 13 and Saga 9. Because the condition requires inventory to have existed at LT30, cases of “never having released inventory in the first place” are excluded.

Table 4: Properties with inventory at LT30 that reached zero remaining rooms at the final observation point (August 13, 2026 check-in / top 10 by OTA-published allotment)

Property	Area	Property type	Total rooms	OTA allotment	Remaining at LT30	Remaining at LT14
Comfort Hotel Kokura (コンフォートホテル小倉)	Kokurakita Ward, Kitakyushu City	Business hotel	216 rooms	170 rooms	27 rooms	0 rooms
Art Hotel Sasebo Central (アートホテル佐世保セントラル)	Sasebo City	City hotel	170 rooms	148 rooms	52 rooms	0 rooms
Hotel Route Inn Kitakyushu Wakamatsu Ekihigashi (ホテルルートイン北九州若松駅東)	Wakamatsu Ward, Kitakyushu City	Business hotel	187 rooms	120 rooms	42 rooms	0 rooms
Super Hotel Premier Aso Kumamoto Airport (スーパーホテル Premier阿蘇熊本空港)	Ozu Town	Business hotel	203 rooms	110 rooms	62 rooms	14 rooms
Daiwa Roynet Hotel Kumamoto (ダイワロイネットホテル熊本)	Chuo Ward, Kumamoto City	Business hotel	152 rooms	107 rooms	52 rooms	0 rooms
Business Hotel Shirasagi (ビジネスホテルしらさぎ)	Kanoya City	Business hotel	158 rooms	105 rooms	75 rooms	0 rooms
Daiwa Roynet Hotel Kumamoto Ginza-dori PREMIER (ダイワロイネットホテル熊本銀座通り PREMIER)	Chuo Ward, Kumamoto City	Business hotel	180 rooms	94 rooms	94 rooms	52 rooms
Nest Hotel Kumamoto (ネストホテル熊本)	Chuo Ward, Kumamoto City	Business hotel	201 rooms	90 rooms	62 rooms	0 rooms
Hotel Den Haag (ホテルデンハーグ)	Sasebo City	Resort hotel	228 rooms	73 rooms	50 rooms	39 rooms
Super Hotel Kokura Station Minamiguchi (スーパーホテル 小倉駅南口)	Kokurakita Ward, Kitakyushu City	Business hotel	108 rooms	67 rooms	8 rooms	0 rooms

Top 10 properties by OTA-published allotment. All had inventory at LT30 for the August 13, 2026 check-in and zero remaining rooms at the final observation point. Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research

Looking at the lineup, eight of the top 10 are business hotels or city hotels, all mid-size or larger properties exceeding 100 rooms. Having released between 50% and nearly 90% of their total room count to OTAs, they filled it within roughly a month. Daiwa Roynet Hotel Kumamoto Ginza-dori PREMIER (ダイワロイネットホテル熊本銀座通り PREMIER) is especially notable: from a state where its entire 94-room allotment still remained at LT30, absorption moved rapidly to 52 rooms at LT14 and then to zero. As a case of capturing last-minute demand, it is instructive.

How to translate these figures into the final two weeks of operations

Let us reframe the figures so far into inputs for decisions over the final two weeks. As a premise, everything below is a proposal of revenue opportunities and is not an evaluation of current operations. On how to set final pricing in a market where absorption speed has diverged by date, Osaka Business Hotels, Obon 2026: 74.6% on Aug 14 vs 63.7% on Aug 16 is also a useful reference.

First, there is room to reflect the day-by-day gradient in pricing. Absorption falls from August 13 to 16 in all six prefectures, with gaps of 21.7 points in Oita and 26.0 points in Fukuoka. Where August 13 and August 16 are priced identically, there is scope for further upside on the August 13 side and scope for a design that drives more bookings on the August 16 side. Fukuoka in particular has 9,005 remaining rooms on August 16 against 3,984 on August 13 — 2.3 times as many — making the demand trough within the period unmistakable.

Second, the LT14-to-LT7 stretch is where the contest is decided. In fixed-panel remaining-room rates, Fukuoka moved from 32.6% at LT14 to 26.9% at LT7 and Kumamoto from 33.5% to 25.5% — large moves within this one week. Oita, by contrast, moved only 3.0 points, from 50.1% at LT14 to 47.1% at LT7. In prefectures and areas where movement is small, inventory and pricing design aimed at last-minute demand from LT7 onward remains an area where revenue can still be added.

Third, treat property-type mismatches as opportunities. Kumamoto shows business hotels at 87.4% against ryokan at 49.6%, and Nagasaki shows city hotels at 82.5% against business hotels at 45.9% — spreads of around 40 points within a single prefecture. A design in which property types with headroom absorb demand overflowing from types where absorption has progressed is entirely workable. Estimated settled ADR for August (an estimate applying correction coefficients to published prices) is highest in Oita at roughly ¥15,200 among the six prefectures, followed by Saga at roughly ¥14,000, Kumamoto ¥12,800, Fukuoka ¥12,700, Nagasaki ¥10,900 and Kagoshima ¥9,600. The combination of rate level and absorption rate can inform which segments to steer allotment toward.

Fourth, in Kagoshima, last-minute inventory additions are actually working. In the fixed panel, rooms rose by 151 from 3,239 at LT14 to 3,390 at LT7, indicating additional release by properties. With 2,244 rooms of headroom in Kagoshima City and 375 rooms in Kirishima City, there is considerable scope for last-minute demand-generation efforts to land.

Summary

Measured on a room basis one week before the Obon peak, Kyushu’s six prefectures still hold 15,150 of 39,334 rooms of OTA-published allotment, for a six-prefecture average absorption rate of 61.5%. The range runs 31.7 percentage points, from Fukuoka at 73.0% to Kagoshima at 41.3%. The gap emerged during the month from LT60 to LT30, a phase in which Fukuoka and Kumamoto pulled ahead while Kagoshima, Oita and Nagasaki moved more gradually.

Looking at the four-day gradient, the shape of absorption peaking on August 13 and declining toward August 16 is common to every prefecture, but Kumamoto alone stays flat at around 60%. Together with its business hotels at 87.4%, that indicates demand accumulating independently of the Obon peak-and-trough pattern. At the same time, the prefecture’s ryokan and small lodgings, along with the Aso region, retain capacity to accept guests.

Descending to the municipality level, high-absorption areas such as Kokurakita Ward of Kitakyushu City at 89.4% and Chuo Ward of Kumamoto City at 85.3% coexist with headroom areas such as Kagoshima City at 34.1% (2,244 rooms remaining), Oita City at 40.1% (1,046 rooms) and Isahaya City at 27.6% (403 rooms). Setting operating policy from prefectural averages alone misses this unevenness. The remaining two weeks are a fitting moment to review inventory and pricing along three axes: by date, by property type and by area.

Related reading

• Kumamoto Quake 2026, 72 Hours On: 6 Closures vs 17.9% Inventory Loss
• Kumamoto Quake 2026: 2016 Recovery Curve as Kyushu’s 7-Pref Benchmark
• Shimane Obon 2026: Only Aug 15-16 Dip; Aug 22 Business Hotels 90.9%
• Osaka Business Hotels, Obon 2026: 74.6% on Aug 14 vs 63.7% on Aug 16
• Fukuoka Hotel Supply 2026-2028: ~1,000 Rooms/Year in Hakata & Tenjin