The settled ADR estimate for city hotels in Shizuoka Prefecture (N=30 properties) rose +16.6% year on year in January 2026 and +16.1% in May. March, by contrast, fell -2.5% and July -0.7%. Comparing finalized months only, the January-July 2026 year-on-year figures swing across a range of -2.5% to +16.6%, a 19.1-point spread. Business hotels in the same prefecture (N=219-222 properties) stayed inside a 7.3-point band of -1.1% to +6.2% — meaning the city-hotel swing is roughly 2.6 times wider.
Reading that gap as “the Shizuoka city hotel market is moving violently” will lead you to the wrong rate decision. Break it down to the property level and a different picture emerges: in May 2026, when the city-hotel median came in at +16.1%, the first quartile of the same panel (the 25th percentile) was -5.9% and the third quartile was -7.0%. The market itself was, if anything, softening. This article presents the year-on-year figures for finalized months only, then sets out how to read a median drawn from a base of just 30 properties.
Scope: city hotels in Shizuoka Prefecture N=30 properties, business hotels N=219-222 properties. The price metric used throughout is the settled ADR estimate (the transacted price level estimated from OTA and other sales data, tax-exclusive equivalent); occupancy is an estimate based on OTA-listed inventory. Both definitions appear at the end of the article. Data as of August 28, 2026.
- — Year-on-year settled ADR estimate for Shizuoka city hotels (N=30) ranges -2.5% to +16.6% (a 19.1-point spread); business hotels (N=219-222) range -1.1% to +6.2% (a 7.3-point spread) — a swing roughly 2.6 times wider for city hotels.
- — In May 2026, when the median was +16.1%, the same panel’s first quartile was -5.9% and its third quartile -7.0%. The band as a whole sat below the prior year, so a rising median did not mean a rising market.
- — The median and the first quartile carry opposite signs in 4 of 7 months for city hotels, versus just 1 month for business hotels. Switching the summary statistic moves the year-on-year figure by up to 22.0 points for city hotels but only 2.3 points for business hotels.
- — The cause is price dispersion within the panel. The city-hotel interquartile range equals 103-154% of the median, and the price spread across the four properties nearest the median is ¥2,100-¥2,863 (17-22% of the median), so reshuffling a single property moves the median by several hundred to two thousand yen. For business hotels the same figure is ¥14-¥71 (0-1%).
- — For rate revisions, treat the area median not as a target but as a scale for locating your own property, and decide on the three-point set of median, first quartile and third quartile across several months rather than a single month’s year-on-year figure.
Finalized months compared: a 19.1-point spread for city hotels, 7.3 points for business hotels
First, a note on the basis. Everything compared here is finalized against finalized: January-July 2026 against January-July 2025. From August 2026 onward the figures are estimates based on current sales conditions, so they are not compared directly with finalized values — year-on-year readings for August and later have to wait until each month closes.
| Month | City 2026 | City 2025 | City YoY | Business 2026 | Business 2025 | Business YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | ¥14,212 | ¥12,185 | +16.6% | ¥6,848 | ¥6,450 | +6.2% |
| February | ¥12,517 | ¥12,718 | -1.6% | ¥6,608 | ¥6,561 | +0.7% |
| March | ¥12,759 | ¥13,092 | -2.5% | ¥7,095 | ¥6,948 | +2.1% |
| April | ¥12,198 | ¥12,239 | -0.3% | ¥6,998 | ¥6,861 | +2.0% |
| May | ¥15,226 | ¥13,119 | +16.1% | ¥7,668 | ¥7,755 | -1.1% |
| June | ¥12,741 | ¥12,708 | +0.3% | ¥6,589 | ¥6,608 | -0.3% |
| July | ¥13,252 | ¥13,341 | -0.7% | ¥7,324 | ¥7,151 | +2.4% |
N=30 city hotels (31-32 in 2025) / 219-222 business hotels (218-221 in 2025). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
Across 2026, city hotels ran from a high of ¥15,226 in May to a low of ¥12,198 in April. Business hotels ran from ¥7,668 in May to ¥6,589 in June, putting the city-hotel level at roughly 1.9 times the business-hotel level. Stacked year over year, business hotels trace exactly the same shape in all three years — a May peak and a June trough. City hotels do not line up month to month: January climbs consistently across the three years at ¥11,563 to ¥12,185 to ¥14,212, while March moves back and forth at ¥12,512 to ¥13,092 to ¥12,759.
Shizuoka city hotels, settled ADR estimate (finalized months only, N=30-32 properties). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
Shizuoka business hotels, settled ADR estimate (finalized months only, N=216-222 properties). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
Lining up the year-on-year figures makes the difference in character even clearer. All seven business-hotel months sit inside a -1.1% to +6.2% band, and five of the seven fall in the very narrow -0.3% to +2.4% range. City hotels take a bipolar shape: only January and May jump into the +16% range, while the other five months are close to flat at -2.5% to +0.3%. This “only city hotels swing hard” pattern is not unique to Shizuoka — the same shape appears in Aichi’s 18 months of finalized settled ADR estimates, where the spread was 25.0pt for city hotels against 14.0pt for business hotels.
Year-on-year change, finalized months compared. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
In the month the median moved +16%, the same panel’s quartiles pointed the other way
The area-level settled ADR estimate is the median of the individual property-level estimates. A median is robust to outliers, but the trade-off is that it moves whenever the ordering near the middle changes. So for the same set of properties we also calculated year-on-year change for the first quartile (25th percentile) and the third quartile (75th percentile). If the median genuinely represents the whole market, all three should broadly point the same way.
| Month | City median | City Q1 | City Q3 | Business median | Business Q1 | Business Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | +16.6% | +4.7% | +2.1% | +6.2% | +3.9% | +3.2% |
| February | -1.6% | -3.7% | +22.3% | +0.7% | +0.9% | -1.0% |
| March | -2.5% | +13.2% | +5.7% | +2.1% | +1.1% | -1.7% |
| April | -0.3% | +0.6% | -10.4% | +2.0% | +2.3% | -1.4% |
| May | +16.1% | -5.9% | -7.0% | -1.1% | -0.4% | -6.2% |
| June | +0.3% | +3.3% | -8.3% | -0.3% | +1.5% | -2.5% |
| July | -0.7% | +14.5% | -6.6% | +2.4% | +4.2% | -1.9% |
N=30 city hotels / 219-222 business hotels (2026 side). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
Business hotels behave as you would expect. Year-on-year change for the median and the first quartile lines up in both sign and magnitude: +6.2% and +3.9% in January, -1.1% and -0.4% in May, +2.4% and +4.2% in July. The median is a faithful representative of the whole panel.
City hotels do not. In May 2026 the median was +16.1% while the first quartile was -5.9% and the third quartile -7.0% — both the upper and lower bands sat below the prior year. January is similar: against a +16.6% median, the first quartile managed only +4.7% and the third quartile +2.1%. March runs the other way, with a -2.5% median but a +13.2% first quartile, and July pairs a -0.7% median with a +14.5% first quartile. In 4 of the 7 months (March, April, May and July) the median and the first quartile carry opposite signs. For business hotels that happens in only one month, June.
In other words, the monthly year-on-year figure for Shizuoka city hotels reflects which property the median happens to land on far more than it reflects movement within price tiers. Read that +16% as a market-wide rate increase and carry it straight across to your own pricing, and you may end up pushing rates up in a month when the entire band was actually falling.
Why the median of a 30-property panel only moves in ¥2,000 steps
The reason lies in the price dispersion of the panel. At N=30 the median is the average of the 15th and 16th values, and Shizuoka’s city-hotel category houses everything from high-rate stay-oriented properties to low-priced rooms-focused ones. In May 2026 the cheapest property sat at ¥5,300 and the most expensive at ¥69,900 — a 13-fold gap — and even around the middle the property-to-property price differences are large. The supply-side movement behind that dispersion is covered in Shizuoka’s 67 hotel openings in 2026, which looks at it through the lens of new entry into the high-rate segment.
| Month | City IQR | City, % of median | City, spread across 4 properties nearest the median | Business IQR | Business, % of median | Business, spread across 4 properties nearest the median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | ¥8,533 – ¥24,450 | 112% | ¥2,690 (19%) | ¥5,784 – ¥7,901 | 31% | ¥30 (0%) |
| February | ¥7,821 – ¥27,154 | 154% | ¥2,220 (18%) | ¥5,730 – ¥7,499 | 27% | ¥20 (0%) |
| March | ¥8,732 – ¥24,756 | 126% | ¥2,466 (19%) | ¥6,026 – ¥8,000 | 28% | ¥48 (1%) |
| April | ¥8,783 – ¥21,318 | 103% | ¥2,100 (17%) | ¥5,987 – ¥7,927 | 28% | ¥71 (1%) |
| May | ¥9,679 – ¥25,375 | 103% | ¥2,822 (19%) | ¥6,554 – ¥8,816 | 30% | ¥44 (1%) |
| June | ¥7,772 – ¥22,739 | 117% | ¥2,631 (21%) | ¥5,748 – ¥7,428 | 25% | ¥52 (1%) |
| July | ¥9,142 – ¥28,215 | 144% | ¥2,863 (22%) | ¥6,268 – ¥8,304 | 28% | ¥14 (0%) |
“Spread across the 4 properties nearest the median” = the difference between the highest and lowest values among the two properties that form the median plus the one on either side, four in total (the figure in parentheses is the ratio to the median). N=30 city hotels / 219-222 business hotels. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
The city-hotel interquartile range equals 103-154% of the median: the gap between the first and third quartiles alone is as large as the median itself, or larger. Business hotels come in at 25-31%, roughly a quarter of the city-hotel figure.
How easily the median moves shows up directly in the spread across the four properties nearest it: ¥2,100-¥2,863 for city hotels (17-22% of the median) versus ¥14-¥71 for business hotels (0-1%). For city hotels, a single property near the middle swapping one rank moves the median by several hundred up to two thousand yen; for business hotels the same swap moves it by only tens of yen. The fairest reading is that city-hotel monthly year-on-year swings run 2.6 times wider than business-hotel swings less because demand in Shizuoka differs by segment than because of this difference in statistical granularity.
Demand-side indicators point the same way: city hotels are not the only segment moving. Estimated OCC based on OTA-listed inventory (Shizuoka Prefecture, monthly average) was 82.7% for city and 85.2% for business in April 2026, 85.7% and 88.3% in May, 82.0% and 84.4% in June, and 86.8% and 87.7% in July. Both segments reach a high level in May — yet in that same May the business-hotel settled ADR estimate was -1.1% against +16.1% for city hotels. Only the price side diverges. On the timing of inventory movement in Shizuoka, see also Shizuoka inventory progress from post-Obon through September.
This “only the median jumps” property can be measured as how much the number changes when you switch the summary statistic. Table 4 lines up year-on-year change for the same property panel and the same months when the representative value is switched from the median to the first or third quartile. For city hotels the choice of statistic alone moves the figure by as much as 22.0 points; for business hotels it moves by at most 2.3 points.
| Month | City median | City Q1 | City sensitivity | Business median | Business Q1 | Business sensitivity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | +16.6% | +4.7% | 11.9pt | +6.2% | +3.9% | 2.3pt |
| March | -2.5% | +13.2% | 15.7pt | +2.1% | +1.1% | 1.0pt |
| May | +16.1% | -5.9% | 22.0pt | -1.1% | -0.4% | 0.7pt |
| July | -0.7% | +14.5% | 15.2pt | +2.4% | +4.2% | 1.8pt |
“Sensitivity” = the absolute difference in points between the median’s year-on-year change and the first quartile’s. It shows how many points the year-on-year figure shifts when the representative value is switched from the median to the first quartile. The months shown are January and May, where the median reached the +16% range, and March and July, where the median was negative while the first quartile was up double digits. Figures are calculated from the same panel as Table 2 (N=30 city hotels / 219-222 business hotels). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
For revenue managers running city and business hotels in Shizuoka: implications and an action plan
1. Use the area median as a scale for locating your property, not as a target. The interquartile range for Shizuoka city hotels runs 103-154% of the median, so the gap between the first and third quartiles alone exceeds the median. In practice it is better to first establish where your own settled ADR estimate sits within that band, and only then talk about the distance from the median. For business hotels the interquartile range is a narrow 25-31% of the median, so the distance from the median is itself meaningful positional information.
2. Check city-hotel monthly year-on-year change as a three-point set: median, first quartile and third quartile. Months like May 2026, where the median and first quartile disagree in sign, occurred in 4 of 7 months for city hotels but only 1 for business hotels. A month where all three point the same way (the shape seen in business hotels in January, May and July) means something entirely different, as support for a rate increase, than a month where only the median jumps.
3. Build the rate-revision calendar around the shape of several months, not a single month’s year-on-year figure. City hotels took a bipolar shape: only January and May in the +16% range, the other five months at -2.5% to +0.3%. Revise in response to a single month’s year-on-year figure and the next month will produce the opposite number and pull you around. Five of the seven business-hotel months sit in a narrow -0.3% to +2.4% band, which is far easier to treat as a year-on-year trend.
4. Levels from August onward cannot yet be treated as finalized year-on-year figures. This article calculates year-on-year change only for the finalized months of January through July. August onward is an estimate based on current sales conditions, and a finalized-against-finalized comparison is only possible once each month closes. It is worth building that rule into your internal reporting format so that in-progress months are never used as evidence of year-on-year change.
| Timeframe | Action | Decision trigger | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Today to this week | Check where your property’s January-July settled ADR estimate falls within the interquartile ranges in Table 3 | For city hotels, whether you sit closer to ¥7,772-¥9,679 (first quartile) or ¥21,318-¥28,215 (third quartile); for business hotels, ¥5,730-¥6,554 versus ¥7,428-¥8,816 | Stop comparing directly against the median and start from relative position within the price band |
| Today to this week | Switch to reporting area ADR year-on-year change alongside the base size (N) and the quartiles in internal materials | Always, where the segment you reference has an N around 30; the median alone is acceptable above 200 | Avoid misreading reshuffling near the median (17-22% of the median for city hotels) as market movement |
| Within two weeks | If you run a city hotel, separate out the May and January results as single-month spikes and reassess | Where that month’s median year-on-year change is in the +16% range but the first and third quartiles are negative, do not treat it as a market-wide increase | Keep overstated assumptions out of next year’s budget and rate plan for the same month |
| Within two weeks | If you run a business hotel, size the revision around a gentle upward trend of roughly +2% | Where your property is flat or below in those same months against +6.2% in January, +2.1% in March, +2.0% in April and +2.4% in July | Capture rate headroom being left on the table in a low-dispersion category |
| Ahead of next month | Change the rate-revision review cycle from single months to a three-month rolling view | Where you reference a series that swings across a 19.1-point range of -2.5% to +16.6% month to month, as city hotels do | Avoid overreacting to a single month’s number and the back-and-forth that follows |
| Ahead of next month | Fix the rule that year-on-year assessment from August onward waits until each month is finalized | While the reference value is an estimate based on current sales conditions, hold off on comparing it directly with the prior year’s finalized value | Avoid making decisions on comparisons with mismatched bases |
Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team
Conclusion: do not read metrics with different base sizes on the same scale
For the finalized months of January-July 2026 in Shizuoka, year-on-year change in the settled ADR estimate ran -2.5% to +16.6% for city hotels and -1.1% to +6.2% for business hotels. Set the numbers side by side and city hotels look 2.6 times as volatile, but break them down to the property level and a different picture emerges. Three yardsticks are worth taking away.
First, a median’s year-on-year change can only be read together with the dispersion of the panel. The same “+5%” means something completely different for city hotels, whose interquartile range is 103-154% of the median, than for business hotels, where it stays within 25-31%.
Second, when the median and the quartiles disagree in sign, suspect reshuffling rather than market movement. For Shizuoka city hotels the median and first quartile carried opposite signs in 4 of 7 months, and in May 2026 a +16.1% median sat against a -5.9% first quartile and a -7.0% third quartile. For business hotels that happened in only one month.
Third, do not use unfinalized months as material for year-on-year comparison. That is why this article limits the comparison to January-July; levels from August onward remain estimates based on current sales conditions. Embedding that line in your internal format is what makes monthly rate revisions reproducible.
About the data
■ Data sources
Proprietary data aggregated at property level from publicly listed OTA price and inventory data. The analysis uses monthly settled ADR estimates for city hotels (January-July 2026, N=30 properties) and business hotels (same period, N=219-222 properties) in Shizuoka Prefecture, quartiles calculated from property-level settled ADR estimates, and estimated OCC for the prefecture (monthly average, April-July 2026). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team.
■ Calculation assumptions
All year-on-year comparisons are limited to finalized against finalized (January-July 2026 against the same months of 2025); months that have not closed are excluded. The area value is the median of the settled ADR estimates for the target properties; the first and third quartiles are calculated from the property-level values of the same panel. The “spread across the 4 properties nearest the median” is the difference between the highest and lowest values among the two properties forming the median plus the one on either side, four in total. “Sensitivity” in Table 4 is the absolute difference in points between the year-on-year change of the median and that of the first quartile.
■ Limitations and caveats
The settled ADR estimate carries a median error of 6.6% when checked against published operating results, and does not match any individual property’s actual transacted rate. With a base of only N=30, the city-hotel median moves easily when nearby properties reshuffle, so a single month’s year-on-year change cannot be read as a market-wide price movement. Estimated OCC is based on OTA-listed inventory and runs higher than actual room occupancy. Months from August 2026 onward have not been finalized and are therefore not used as year-on-year material in this article.
- Definition of estimated OCC (OTA-listed inventory basis): OTA-listed inventory occupancy = 100 − 100 × rooms still listed on OTAs ÷ total rooms. It is an estimate based on how far OTA-listed inventory has sold through, and is defined differently from actual room occupancy (it runs higher). The estimated OCC referenced in this article is the monthly average for Shizuoka city and business hotels from April to July 2026.
- Booking curve: based on observations from 45 days before the stay date up to the present.
- Definition of the settled ADR estimate: the transacted price level (tax-exclusive equivalent) estimated from OTA and other sales data (lowest-plan level × segment-specific coefficient, ensembled across multiple channels). Past months are finalized values; the current and future months are estimates based on current sales conditions. Median error of 6.6% when checked against published operating results. The area value is the median of the settled ADR estimates for the target properties.
- Breakdown of N: Shizuoka city hotels = N=30 properties for January-July 2026, N=31-32 for the same months of 2025. Shizuoka business hotels = N=219-222 properties for January-July 2026, N=218-221 for the same months of 2025. The first and third quartiles and the “spread across the 4 properties nearest the median” are calculated from the same property-level settled ADR estimates as the area median (property-level values are used only as an anonymous distribution).
- Basis of comparison: all year-on-year figures compare finalized values against finalized values and are limited to January-July 2026. From August 2026 onward the figures are estimates based on current sales conditions, so they are not compared directly with the prior year’s finalized values; each month’s close is awaited first.
- Data as of: August 28, 2026. Sales conditions and inventory change daily, so the figures in this article are a snapshot at the time of retrieval.
Related reading
- Aichi Settled ADR 18 Months: City Swings 25.0pt, Business 14.0pt
- Shizuoka Post-Obon Inventory: Ryokan 55.5% at 45 Days Out on Sep 1
- Shizuoka’s 67 New 2026 Hotels: 1,089 Rooms, 64% One-Room Villas
- Breakfast Premium 4.4x Gap: Kyoto 22.0% vs Shizuoka 5.0%, 10 Markets
- Kanagawa ADR Splits: City Hotels +20.9%, Business −1.7% in June 2026
- Yamagata ADR Splits by Segment: Business −4.8% in April, City +12.5%
- Okayama City Hotel ADR −23.3% in July, Business +2.8% in H1 2026
- Shimane July ADR: City Hotels −8.2%, Business +1.5%, Spread Halves
- Yamaguchi Settled ADR H1 2026: Business +3.4%, City Hotels −6.4%