The estimated settled ADR of business hotels in Okayama Prefecture (N=98 properties) came in at a finalized ¥8,021 for October 2026, up +10.9% from ¥7,234 a year earlier. Following September’s +10.1%, this marks a second consecutive month of double-digit year-on-year growth. City hotels (N=17 properties), by contrast, stood at ¥12,322 in October, still −4.1% YoY, but the decline has narrowed sharply from the −23% range recorded in July and August. Lining up the finalized months from January 2025 through October 2026 reveals two contrasting shapes: business hotels went from “a solid first half → a summer pause → an autumn re-acceleration,” while city hotels went from “a pullback against last summer’s high base → convergence in autumn.” This article tracks YoY changes between finalized months, the shifting price gap between business and city hotels, estimated OCC for October, and current estimates for November onward.

Coverage: business hotels in Okayama Prefecture, N=98 properties (October 2026); city hotels, N=17 properties (same month). Price metrics in this article are estimated settled ADR (the settled price level estimated from OTA and other sales data, tax-excluded equivalent); occupancy is an estimate based on OTA-listed inventory. Definitions are at the end of the article. The city hotel sample is small at 17 properties, so price changes at a few properties can easily move the monthly figure. Data as of November 8, 2026.

October 2026 Finalized — Business Hotels Post a Second Straight Double-Digit Gain, City Hotels Narrow Their Decline

We start with the most recent finalized month. The estimated settled ADR of business hotels in Okayama Prefecture reached ¥8,021 (N=98) in October 2026, the highest of the 22 finalized months since January 2025. Compared with ¥7,234 (N=97) a year earlier, that is +10.9%; together with September’s ¥7,748 (N=97, vs. ¥7,039 a year earlier, +10.1%), it makes two consecutive months of double-digit YoY growth. Since months at or slightly below the prior year had continued through August, the acceleration from September onward marks a clear turning point for Okayama’s business hotel market. The January–July trend and the divergence between segments are covered in Okayama City Hotel ADR −23.3% in July, Business +2.8% in H1 2026, and this article is a follow-up to that piece.

City hotels, on the other hand, came in at ¥12,322 (N=17) in October, −4.1% against ¥12,853 (N=18) a year earlier, so they remain below the prior year. The size of the decline, however, moved from −16.6% in June to −23.3% in July, −23.2% in August and −8.9% in September, clearly converging as autumn arrived. October’s ¥12,322 is the highest of the finalized months in 2026 and exceeds May’s ¥12,075 in absolute terms. The YoY decline reads less as “this year is weak” and more as the flip side of “last summer and autumn were strong.”

Estimated settled ADR (tax-excluded equivalent), finalized vs. finalized months. N= is the number of covered properties in each month. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

On a simple January–October average, business hotels rose +4.0% from ¥7,063 in 2025 to ¥7,343 in 2026, while city hotels fell −8.9% from ¥12,237 to ¥11,151. Two movements — a year-round lift for business hotels and a pullback for city hotels against last summer — define the pricing picture in Okayama Prefecture in 2026.

Business Hotels Month by Month — Solid First Half, Summer Pause, Autumn Re-acceleration

Tracking business hotels through 2026 month by month, the year started strongly at +9.7% in January and +7.1% in February, then kept above the prior year while slowing to +3.4% in March, +2.2% in April and +2.3% in May. June, however, came in at ¥6,680, −3.9% below last year’s ¥6,948, followed by −0.3% in July and −0.7% in August — three months of roughly flat performance. From there, the market accelerated sharply to ¥7,748 (+10.1%) in September and ¥8,021 (+10.9%) in October, regaining its early-year momentum in the autumn.

The move from August to September deserves attention. In 2025, rates dropped seasonally from ¥7,957 in August to ¥7,039 in September; in 2026 the dip was much smaller, from ¥7,900 in August to ¥7,748 in September, and rates then rose to ¥8,021 in October, surpassing the summer peak. This means the usual seasonal shape of Okayama’s business hotels — “summer peak → autumn trough” — changed in 2026 to “summer and autumn at the same height.” The chart below overlays 2025 and 2026 by month, making both the overlap of the June–August lines and the divergence in September–October easy to see.

Estimated settled ADR of business hotels in Okayama Prefecture (tax-excluded equivalent). Solid line = finalized; dotted line = estimate based on current sales status (November and December; subject to change). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

City Hotels Month by Month — Last Summer’s High Base Dragged Down YoY

The key to reading the YoY decline in city hotels lies in their 2025 summer levels. In 2025, city hotels stood at ¥13,178 in July and ¥15,476 in August, well above the other months of that year (¥11,100–¥12,900). In 2026, by contrast, July was ¥10,109 and August ¥11,888, within the same range as the rest of 2026. In other words, the −23% YoY in summer 2026 looks more like a base effect from an exceptionally strong prior summer than a collapse this summer.

One possible background factor is the Setouchi Triennale 2025 (瀬戸内国際芸術祭2025), held in 2025. The festival ran for a total of 107 days across a spring session (April 18 – May 25), a summer session (August 1 – 31) and an autumn session (October 3 – November 9), with the Uno Port area on the Okayama side among its venues. The summer session spanning all of August and the autumn session covering October–November overlap in timing with the high 2025 levels of ¥15,476 in August, ¥12,853 in October and ¥12,672 in November. Of course, the festival alone cannot explain price levels; individual events and group demand also matter, and with only N=17–18 properties, pricing at a few properties can easily move the monthly figure.

Either way, the narrowing of the decline toward autumn 2026 — −8.9% in September and −4.1% in October — is consistent with the prior year’s special factors fading. October’s ¥12,322 is the highest finalized month of 2026, and can also be read as a steady build-up in absolute terms. The narrowing of city hotel declines in autumn is not unique to Okayama; the same pattern appears in Tokyo City Hotel ADR: −10.3% in September to −0.7% in October.

Estimated settled ADR of city hotels in Okayama Prefecture (tax-excluded equivalent). Note the small sample of N=17–18 properties. Solid line = finalized; dotted line = estimate based on current sales status (subject to change). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

YoY Trend — The Two Categories Are Out of Phase

Placing the two categories’ YoY changes side by side by month makes the phase gap clear. Business hotels traced a “U”: positive in January–May, slightly negative in June–August and double-digit positive in September–October. City hotels formed something closer to a “W”: negative in January–February, positive in March–May, sharply negative in June–August, and still negative though narrowing in September–October. Only in March–May were both positive at the same time, making those three months the period when Okayama’s lodging market as a whole was pricing above the prior year.

YoY change in estimated settled ADR (finalized vs. finalized months). Business N=93–98, city N=17–18. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

As a result, the price gap between business and city hotels narrowed considerably. The ratio of city to business estimated settled ADR was 1.94x in August 2025, 1.72x in September and 1.78x in October, compared with 1.50x in August 2026, 1.42x in September and 1.54x in October. With business hotels rising and city hotels falling, the “price step between categories” within Okayama Prefecture shrank by 0.2–0.4 points in a single year. The upper price band of business hotels and the lower price band of city hotels may be converging, creating an environment in which more guests are likely to compare the two on room type or breakfast inclusion.

Comparison with the Five Chugoku Prefectures — Business Hotels Follow a Region-Wide Rise; Only Okayama’s City Hotels Fell YoY

To check whether Okayama’s movements are specific to the prefecture or shared with its neighbors, we lined up October 2026 finalized values for the five Chugoku-region prefectures on the same definition (estimated settled ADR, YoY between finalized months) (Table 2). Business hotels rose YoY in all five prefectures, in the order Hiroshima +16.5%, Tottori +12.8%, Okayama +10.9%, Yamaguchi +7.8% and Shimane +5.7%. Okayama’s +10.9% ranks third of five, suggesting that the autumn rise in business hotel rates is a movement shared widely across the Chugoku region. Hiroshima is covered in detail in Hiroshima Settled Sept 2026 ADR: City +18.9%, Business +12.1% YoY.

City hotels, meanwhile, rose in four prefectures — Hiroshima +31.5%, Shimane +7.3%, Yamaguchi +6.1% and Tottori +6.0% — and Okayama (−4.1%) was the only one below the prior year in October. City hotel samples in Yamaguchi, Tottori and Shimane are even smaller than Okayama’s at 8–10 properties, so their monthly values should be discounted for volatility. Even so, Okayama’s YoY decline in city hotels is more likely driven by the high prior-year base on the Okayama side, discussed in the previous section, than by demand weakness common to the Chugoku region.

Estimated settled ADR (tax-excluded equivalent) in the five Chugoku prefectures, finalized October 2026 vs. finalized October 2025. N= is the number of covered properties in each month. City hotel samples are small at 8–31 properties. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Estimated OCC in October — Weekday-Led High Occupancy Supported the Rate Rise

To confirm that the rate increase did not come at the expense of occupancy, we look at the estimated OCC (based on OTA-listed inventory) of business hotels for the same October. For business hotels in Okayama Prefecture (48–51 properties / approx. 6,250–6,490 rooms, based on listings on major booking sites), estimated OCC averaged 91.7% for October 2026, already at a high level from 86.8% in September (45–51 properties / approx. 5,350–6,490 rooms). The highest day of the month was Thursday, October 22 at 99.8%, followed by Thursday, October 15 at 99.2%, Wednesday, October 21 at 98.7%, Wednesday, October 7 at 97.9% and Wednesday, October 14 at 97.3% — all of the top five days were Wednesdays or Thursdays.

Estimated OCC (based on OTA-listed inventory) of business hotels in Okayama Prefecture, average by day of week. October = 48–51 properties; September = 45–51 properties. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

By day of week, October’s Wednesday (97.7%), Thursday (96.7%) and Tuesday (94.5%) exceeded Saturday (92.7%), with Sunday (81.0%) and Monday (86.7%) forming the troughs. In September, Monday through Thursday were roughly level at 88–90%, whereas in October Tuesday through Thursday climbed to around 95%, showing that inventory was absorbed mainly on weekdays. Business hotels’ October estimated settled ADR of ¥8,021 (+10.9%) was achieved alongside this high weekday occupancy, so the picture is not one of raising rates at the cost of occupancy. For city hotels, there are not enough properties to form a fixed cohort for estimated OCC, so it is not included in this article.

Current Estimates for November Onward — How to Read Figures That Are Not Yet Finalized

For November onward there are no finalized values, only estimates based on current sales status. The current estimates are ¥10,232 (N=95) for business hotels in November 2026 and ¥9,494 (N=94) in December, and ¥16,988 (N=17) for city hotels in November and ¥15,270 (N=17) in December. All are well above the finalized-month levels (business hotels in the ¥7,000–8,000 range, city hotels in the ¥10,000–12,000 range), but this reflects the tendency for lower-priced inventory to be absorbed first on stay dates where sales have progressed, so the price level of remaining inventory reads high at this point. It does not mean month-end finalized values will land at these levels. Simple comparisons with prior-year finalized values (business: ¥7,374 in November and ¥6,872 in December; city: ¥12,672 in November and ¥11,107 in December) must wait for month-end finalization.

The appropriate way to read these figures is not to focus on “current estimates being higher than last year’s finalized values” itself, but to observe month by month how far the estimates are revised down after finalization, and to use them as material for checking where your own property’s pricing of remaining inventory sits relative to the price level of the market’s remaining inventory. The dotted portions of the charts correspond to these current estimates.

For Revenue Managers of Business and City Hotels in Okayama Prefecture — Implications and Action Plan

All trigger figures are market values presented in this article. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Summary — Three Yardsticks for Reading Okayama’s Monthly ADR

For October 2026 finalized, the estimated settled ADR in Okayama Prefecture was ¥8,021 for business hotels (N=98, +10.9% YoY), the highest of 22 finalized months, and ¥12,322 for city hotels (N=17, −4.1% YoY), the highest of 2026. The content of this article can be summarized in three points.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

From November onward only current estimates exist, so simple comparisons with finalized values are not possible. This monthly report will be updated as more months are finalized, and will also track how current estimates converged to finalized values.

About the Data

References and Sources

■ Data sources

Estimated settled ADR and estimated OCC based on OTA-listed inventory, calculated from OTA public price and inventory data continuously tracked by MetroEngines Research (approx. 168,000 properties in Japan). Okayama Prefecture covers 93–98 business hotels and 17–18 city hotels; the four comparison Chugoku prefectures were aggregated on the same definition and the same finalized months.

■ Calculation assumptions

Estimated settled ADR is a per-room settled price estimate (tax-excluded equivalent) obtained by applying a segment-specific factor to the lowest-plan level; area values are the median of covered properties. YoY changes are calculated only between finalized values, and current estimates for November onward are not compared with prior-year finalized values. The city-to-business ratio is the simple ratio of each month’s estimated settled ADR.

■ Limitations and caveats

These are estimates and differ from each property’s actual settled prices and accounting figures (median error of 6.6% against published operating results). City hotel samples are small (17 properties in Okayama; 8–10 in Yamaguchi, Tottori and Shimane), so price changes at a few properties can easily move monthly figures. Estimated OCC tends to read higher than actual room occupancy because unlisted rooms are counted as absorbed. The link to the Setouchi Triennale 2025 indicates an overlap in timing only and has not been verified as causal.