Within the scope tracked by MetroEngines Research, 104 lodging properties with 2,950 rooms opened (or are scheduled to open) in Okinawa Prefecture in 2026, as of November 4. Reading that figure straight as “new supply,” however, would be misleading. Of the eight properties with more than 200 rooms, which together account for 70% of all rooms, four (1,100 rooms) are rebrands of existing hotels, so the rooms actually added come to only about 1,850. This article sorts the 104 properties by type and region, splits the eight large hotels into new builds and conversions, and then places estimated settled ADR in Naha, Chatan, Miyakojima and Onna, tsunami inundation risk, and the change in rates before and after a rebrand on a single map.

Counts of new openings and rooms are based on the establishment date of properties confirmed as listed on major booking sites (OTA-listing basis, N=104 properties). Because listings appear several months before opening, figures for later months of 2026 may rise as more listings appear. Room counts are based on listing information; for properties noted individually in the text, figures published by the operator or brand are given priority and shown alongside.

By Type and Region — Half the Properties Are Vacation Rentals, 80% of Rooms Are Resort and City Hotels

Breaking the 104 properties down by type first shows that property counts and room counts tell very different stories. Vacation rentals are the most numerous at 55 properties, but they total only 88 rooms, and 43 of them are single-unit whole-house rentals. Resort hotels, by contrast, number 13 properties with 1,705 rooms — 57.8% of all rooms — and adding 5 city hotels with 733 rooms (24.8%) brings those two types, 18 properties in all, to 82.6% of rooms. Hostels follow with 8 properties and 194 rooms, and business hotels with 5 properties and 160 rooms; the remaining 18 properties, including glamping sites and cottages, add only 70 rooms combined. The pattern of vacation rentals making up half of all properties is not unique to Okinawa; the nationwide clustering of whole-house rentals, including Izu and Yamanashi, is analyzed in detail in Vacation Rentals Take 45% of Japan’s 2026 New Hotel Openings (247 Villas).

By region, more than half of the rooms are concentrated in Naha. Naha City accounts for 14 properties and 1,548 rooms (52.5% of the total), followed by the central region (Chatan, Onna, Yomitan, Uruma and others) with 17 properties and 630 rooms, and Miyako–Yaeyama with 31 properties and 607 rooms. The northern region (Motobu, Nago, Nakijin and others) has the most properties at 34, but 23 of them are vacation rentals, so it adds only 139 rooms. In other words, 2026 in Okinawa was a year in which supply built up in a two-tier structure: large hotels in Naha, the west coast and Miyakojima, and small whole-house rentals in the north and on the outer islands.

Sorting the 8 Hotels Over 200 Rooms — 4 New Builds (973 Rooms), 4 Conversions of Existing Buildings (1,100 Rooms)

What determines the real shape of supply is the eight hotels with more than 200 rooms, which make up 70.4% of the 2,950 rooms. Checking each against operator announcements and press reports, four are new builds totaling 973 rooms: The Royal Park Hotel Iconic Naha (ザ ロイヤルパークホテル アイコニック 那覇; 257 rooms, opened January 30) in the Bank of the Ryukyus’ new headquarters building; RIHGA Royal Resort Okinawa Chatan (リーガロイヤルリゾート沖縄 北谷; 209 rooms, April 1) on the former Ferris wheel site; PGM Hotel Resort Okinawa (PGMホテルリゾート沖縄; 201 rooms, grand opening July 3) next to a golf course; and Canopy by Hilton Okinawa Miyako Island Resort (キャノピーbyヒルトン沖縄宮古島リゾート; 306 rooms, April 1) on the site adjacent to Hilton Okinawa Miyako Island Resort.

The remaining four all took over existing buildings. Infinisis Naha Shurijo by Hewitt Resort (インフィニシス 那覇 首里城 by ヒューイットリゾート; 328 rooms) in Matsukawa, Naha, opened on July 31 as a rebrand of Novotel Okinawa Naha, as the operator announced, and Hotel Monterey La Soeur Naha (ホテルモントレ ラ・スール那覇; 223 rooms, April 3) at the entrance to Kokusai-dori was a rebrand opening with a renovated lobby and all guest rooms. South Gate Hotel Okinawa (サウスゲートホテル沖縄; 216 rooms, May 23) at Tomari Port took over operation of the facility formerly occupied by Okinawa Kariyushi Urban Resort Naha, with rooms reconfigured from 269 to 216. And The Grand Castle Naha Shurijo by Hewitt Resort (ザ グランドキャッスル 那覇 首里城 by ヒューイットリゾート; 333 rooms) in Yamagawa-cho, Shuri, is a plan for a new operator to run the current DoubleTree by Hilton Naha Shuri Castle building from January 1, 2027. It appears in the listing data as a 2026 scheduled opening in our tally, but it does not add any rooms.

In Hilton’s “Company Profile” (updated August 25, 2026), the table of its 37 hotels in Japan lists DoubleTree by Hilton Naha Shuri Castle at 333 rooms with 10 banquet rooms, and describes it historically as a 2016 rebrand opening. The same document lists Canopy by Hilton Okinawa Miyako Island Resort at 306 rooms, opening in 2026 — a 4-room difference from the 310 rooms in the listing data. This article’s totals of 2,950 and 2,077 rooms are compiled on a listing basis, but for this individual property we give priority to the document’s figure of 306 rooms. In that 37-hotel table, Hilton-affiliated hotels in Okinawa number 7 properties with 1,997 rooms (our sum).

Net-New Supply Growth — +1.8% Within 5km of Naha, +11% in Miyakojima and Southern Onna

So how heavy is the added supply relative to the existing stock? Here we use the room stock within a 5km radius of each area’s center as the base, define “operating” as properties with sales prices confirmed on major booking sites in the last three months, and set the rooms opened in 2026 against that denominator. For central Naha (Kenchomae Station), the base covers lodging properties with 10 or more rooms (excluding leisure hotels) within a 5,000m radius, with “operating” meaning properties whose sales prices were confirmed on major booking sites in the last three months (September–November 2026) (as of November 5, 2026, compiled by MetroEngines Research). The Mihama (Chatan), Hirara (Miyakojima City Hall) and southern Onna (Nakadomari / Maekaneku) areas were compiled on the same criteria.

The operating stock within 5km of Naha is 235 properties with 21,852 rooms, and the properties with 10+ rooms that began listing within that radius in 2026 number 8 with 1,483 rooms. On a listing basis that would be a large +6.8%, but 1,100 of those rooms are the four conversions described above, so net new supply is only 383 rooms, or +1.8%. By contrast, within 5km of Chatan (69 operating properties, 4,186 rooms), all 209 rooms of RIHGA Royal Resort Okinawa Chatan are new, for +5.0%; within 5km of Hirara, Miyakojima (70 operating properties, 3,456 rooms), 4 properties including Canopy by Hilton add 402 rooms, for +11.6%; and within 5km of southern Onna (23 operating properties, 3,395 rooms), 3 properties including PGM Hotel Resort Okinawa and BLISSTIA add 379 rooms, for +11.2%. It is more accurate to read the supply pressure as falling not on Naha but on Miyakojima and the west-coast resort belt around Onna. For background on the relationship between the continuing supply build-up in Miyako and Yaeyama and yields on resort condominiums, see our related analysis on resort condo investment in the area.

These net growth rates are upper bounds that treat every unverified property as a new build. We therefore checked how far the net growth rate falls when the share of conversions among unverified rooms is varied from 0% to 100%. Unverified rooms in each radius are the rooms opened in the radius minus verified properties (Naha: The Royal Park Hotel Iconic Naha, 257 rooms; Chatan: RIHGA Royal Resort Okinawa Chatan, 209 rooms; Miyakojima: Canopy by Hilton, 306 rooms; Onna: PGM Hotel Resort Okinawa, 201 rooms, and BLISSTIA, 139 rooms) and the four conversions. Even if all unverified rooms were conversions, Hirara (Miyakojima) stays at +8.9% and southern Onna at +10.0% — more than seven times Naha (+1.2%) — so the reading that “supply pressure falls on Miyakojima and Onna, not Naha” does not depend on how the assumption is set.

The two Shuri hotels also face a structural site constraint. According to MLIT zoning data, the Grand Castle site lies in a Category 1 Low-Rise Exclusive Residential Zone (floor area ratio 100%) and Infinisis in a Category 1 Mid/High-Rise Exclusive Residential Zone (FAR 200%) — areas where a new hotel cannot be built under current rules. Continuing to take over existing buildings dating from the 1970s is effectively the only way to maintain 300-room-class supply around Shuri Castle, and the scarcity of such buildings is what lies behind the repeated rebranding.

Opening Volume 2024–2026 — Fewer Properties, Twice the Rooms, as Hotels Get Bigger

Lined up against the previous two years on the same listing basis, Okinawa’s new openings are in a phase of “upsizing,” with property counts falling while rooms rise. In 2024 there were 138 properties with 1,330 rooms, in 2025 131 properties with 2,082 rooms, and in 2026 104 properties with 2,950 rooms; average rooms per property roughly tripled from 9.6 to 28.4. The mix also differs year to year: 2025 was led by 7 business hotels with 841 rooms (including THE NEST NAHA with 366 rooms), whereas in 2026 resorts (1,705 rooms) and city hotels (733 rooms) take the lead. Vacation rentals numbered 76 in 2024 and 80 in 2025, and 55 in 2026 as of November 4 — a pace close to the previous two years, with year-end openings, whose listings lag, still to come.

The monthly distribution for 2026 does, however, need careful reading. Rooms are concentrated in months with large openings — January 18 properties / 283 rooms, April 15 / 944 rooms, July 13 / 791 rooms — while September has only 2 properties / 6 rooms and October 4 / 11 rooms. This does not mean supply has stopped; it reflects the fact that listings on major booking sites appear only a few months before opening, and the year-end tally is expected to grow as more listings appear. Separately, building-construction statistics (based on building permit applications) record a planned new 200-room, 17-floor hotel in Nishihara, Urasoe City (scheduled for completion in July 2026), but as of November 4 no listing on major booking sites could be confirmed.

Estimated Settled ADR in Naha, Chatan, Miyakojima and Onna — Rates Beat the Prior Year in a Year of Rising Supply

How rates moved in a year of rising supply is at the heart of any investment decision. Comparing estimated settled ADR for the finalized months of September and October 2026 with the same months a year earlier, all four municipalities were above the prior year. Naha City was ¥9,700 in September (+8.6%) and ¥10,200 in October (+7.0%), the median of N=144 properties. Chatan grew strongly at ¥16,200 in September (+11.2%) and ¥16,400 in October (+17.5%); Miyakojima was ¥13,500 in September (+6.1%) and ¥14,000 in October (+6.0%); and Onna was ¥21,900 in September (+9.2%) and ¥22,300 in October (+11.4%). For the prefecture as a whole, September was ¥12,000 (+10.0%) and October ¥12,200 (+12.7%).

Turning to the summer, only Naha City saw August fall to ¥10,200, down 5.3% YoY. Okinawa’s visitor arrivals were 923,900 in August, down 14.0% YoY, and fell again in September to 897,700 (−5.4%) due to typhoons; the prefecture’s Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports preliminary figures put the first half of FY2026 at 5,333,800 (−3.6%), the third-highest level on record. In Naha, more than 1,100 rooms of large conversions and new builds had piled up by the end of July, yet rates turned positive YoY again from September, suggesting that — apart from months when demand was temporarily weak — the market has not entered a phase where added supply pushes down the city median. Onna stood out with west-coast resort summer strength at ¥30,400 in July (+26.0%) and ¥33,000 in August (+16.3%), and the openings of PGM and BLISSTIA may actually have worked to lift the price band across the area.

Site Assessment — 4 of the 10 Large Hotels (992 Rooms) Lie in Tsunami Inundation Zones; the 2 Shuri Hotels Sit on High Ground

We checked the locations of the 10 openings with more than 100 rooms against tsunami inundation projections, landform classification (liquefaction tendency) and zoning from the MLIT Real Estate Information Library. Four properties with 992 rooms (listing basis) fall inside tsunami inundation zones: South Gate Hotel Okinawa at Tomari Port (projected inundation depth 2m to under 5m), Canopy by Hilton in Miyakojima’s Tourivage district (2m to under 5m), RIHGA Royal Resort Okinawa Chatan in Mihama, Chatan (1m to under 2m), and The Royal Park Hotel Iconic Naha near Kenchomae (0.3m to under 1m). The first three are on reclaimed land classified as “highly prone to liquefaction.” The two hotels in Yamagawa-cho, Shuri and Matsukawa (Grand Castle and Infinisis) are on high ground on a rock plateau outside the projected inundation area, and PGM Hotel Resort Okinawa (hills) and Allamanda Splendid (rock plateau) are also outside the zone.

Being inside an inundation zone is the flip side of the value of a site by the port, the beach or the city center. The point for investors is that the Royal Park places its hotel on the upper floors (7–13) and South Gate occupies a 15-story terminal building — building configurations with room for vertical evacuation — so their evacuation planning differs from that of low-rise beachfront properties. Detailed inundation projections and estimates of BCP investment are covered in our earlier report on resort rooms from Onna to Nago Bay, Okinawa West Coast: 40% of Resort Rooms in Tsunami Zone, BCP ¥98K–280K.

How Did Rates Move After the Rebrand? — The 223-Room Hotel at the Kokusai-dori Entrance Went From 0.89x to 1.53x the City Median

The most straightforward way to measure the investment effect of a rebrand is to compare estimated settled ADR for the same building before and after. Of the four conversions, the only one for which finalized-month estimated settled ADR was available for both the pre- and post-conversion periods was the address of Hotel Monterey La Soeur Naha (1-1-2 Matsuo, Naha). Sales prices for the 222-room hotel at that address were observable through August 2025; its estimated settled ADR was ¥9,200 in July 2025 and ¥9,600 in August, or 0.93x and 0.89x the Naha City median (¥9,800 in July, ¥10,800 in August). After a full renovation and reopening as a Monterey, 2026 saw ¥14,400 in July, ¥15,700 in August and ¥17,200 by October — 1.68x the city median (¥10,200 in October). Year on year, it rose +56% in July and +63% in August, far outpacing the Naha City median over the same period (+2.7% in July, −5.3% in August).

Here lies a lesson for operators. With the location unchanged (2 minutes’ walk from Kenchomae Station, at the entrance to Kokusai-dori), a full guest-room renovation and a brand alone moved the hotel from 0.9x to 1.5–1.7x the city median, suggesting that central Naha still has room to “renovate aging mid-size hotels and move them into the upper-midscale band.” For the 333-room property in Shuri, the current DoubleTree by Hilton Naha Shuri Castle’s estimated settled ADR was ¥19,800 in October 2026 (+13.2% YoY), running at 1.9x the Naha City median; after the renovation reported in the press (total cost ¥180 million, covering the entrance, lobby, restaurant and pool) and the move to a new brand in 2027, its rates will be compared against this level as the starting point. For Infinisis, only three finalized months (August–October) are available since opening, so a YoY comparison should wait until winter months, including the year-end and New Year period, are finalized.

Implications for Investors and Operators — The Weight of 1,850 Net New Rooms, and the February 2027 Lodging Tax

Finally, on the regulatory side, Okinawa Prefecture plans to introduce a lodging tax of 2% of the room charge (capped at ¥2,000 per person per night) from February 1, 2027. Where Ishigaki City, Miyakojima City, Motobu Town, Onna Village and Chatan Town levy their own tax as well, it becomes a combination of 0.8% for the prefecture (capped at ¥800) and 1.2% for the municipality (capped at ¥1,200). Three of the four municipalities examined in this article are among those planning to levy their own tax, so from winter 2027 onward, year-on-year comparisons will need to use tax-inclusive actual prices. With the operator change in Shuri in January 2027, the start of the lodging tax in February, and the winter pro baseball spring camps and Lunar New Year all bunched into the start of the year as drivers of Okinawa pricing, this article’s figures — “1,850 net new rooms, +1.8% within 5km of Naha” — should serve as a baseline for neither overstating nor understating the increase in supply.

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