Tracking booking progress for business hotels in Ishikawa across the first weekend of October 2026 (Fri Oct 2, Sat Oct 3, Sun Oct 4) at lead times (LT, the number of days remaining until the stay date) of 45 days or less, the “shape” of the build-up splits clearly between Saturday and Sunday. At 45 days before the stay date, estimated OCC (based on OTA listed inventory) stood at 80.8% for Sat Oct 3 against 65.0% for Sun Oct 4 — a gap of 15.8pt. At the most recent observation (Oct 3 = T-37, Oct 4 = T-38) the readings are 84.3% versus 66.3%, and the gap has actually widened to 18.0pt. Saturday keeps stacking up, while Sunday has barely moved since 45 days out. This article breaks the three dates down at three points — T-45, T-30 and T-14 — and builds a countdown calendar for filling the Sunday trough.

Scope: business hotels in Ishikawa, N=100 properties (N=99 properties for Oct 4 only), with city hotels N=10 properties shown for reference. This article does not cover price metrics; occupancy is an estimated figure based on OTA listed inventory (estimated OCC). Definitions appear at the end of the article. Data as of 29 August 2026.

The first weekend of October: Saturday and Sunday build in different shapes

Start with the booking curves for the three dates. For Ishikawa business hotels (N=100 properties, 12,457 rooms in scope), estimated OCC at 45 days out was 69.2% for Fri Oct 2, 80.8% for Sat Oct 3 and 65.0% for Sun Oct 4. From there to the most recent observation, the gains were +2.7pt for Oct 2 (69.2% at T-45 → 71.9% at T-36), +3.5pt for Oct 3 (80.8% → 84.3% at T-37) and +1.3pt for Oct 4 (65.0% → 66.3% at T-38).

What matters here is the slope, not the absolute level. Saturday was already above 80% at 45 days out and has kept stacking up on top of that. Friday, though gentler, is also holding an upward line. Sunday, by contrast, moved just 1.3pt across the seven days from T-45 to T-38. In other words, Sunday is not “stalled at a high level” — it is stalled at a low one. The two call for entirely different responses. The same procedure for breaking progress down at T-45, T-30 and T-14 by stay date is used in Tokyo Early Sep: Booking Curves at T-45/T-30/T-14, OCC 76.0-81.5%.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team

The sold-out property rate (the estimated share of properties for which no listed inventory can be confirmed on OTAs or elsewhere) shows the same structure. Sat Oct 3 rose from 32.0% at T-45 to 41.0% at T-37, meaning that for over 40% of the properties in scope no listed inventory can now be confirmed. Sun Oct 4, meanwhile, is flat below 10% — 9.1% at T-45 and 8.1% at T-38. Fri Oct 2 shows only a small rise, from 11.0% to 13.0%. Saturday’s inventory has already begun to tighten; on Sunday, inventory is still widely available across the market.

Ishikawa business hotels, N=100 properties (N=99 for Oct 4). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team

City hotels (N=10 properties), shown for reference, take a different shape across the same three dates. At T-45, Oct 2 reads 85.1%, Oct 3 86.3% and Oct 4 81.3%. The Saturday–Sunday gap is only 5.0pt, and 5.6pt at the latest snapshot as well (Oct 3 = 88.3%, Oct 4 = 82.7%). With a base of only 10 properties the levels themselves should be treated as indicative, but the tendency is readable: the Sunday drop is not as deep as it is for business hotels. The Sunday trough is better understood as concentrated in the business-hotel segment rather than as a phenomenon across Ishikawa as a whole.

The Sunday trough is not a first-week-of-October story

To check whether the weakness on Oct 4 is a one-off or something structural, daily results for completed past months were averaged by day of week. Estimated OCC for Ishikawa business hotels in May 2026 ran Mon 87.9%, Tue 89.4%, Wed 84.5%, Thu 88.5%, Fri 85.1%, Sat 91.1%, Sun 81.5% (monthly average 86.8%); in June, Mon 73.9%, Tue 78.0%, Wed 81.4%, Thu 85.4%, Fri 86.9%, Sat 91.2%, Sun 70.4% (monthly average 80.7%); and in July, Mon 75.1%, Tue 81.3%, Wed 83.0%, Thu 83.7%, Fri 81.9%, Sat 90.3%, Sun 78.1% (monthly average 82.0%).

In all three months, Sunday is the lowest of the seven days. The gap to Saturday was -9.6pt in May, -20.8pt in June and -12.2pt in July. Saturday is remarkably stable in the 90s across all three months, while Sunday alone swings widely from month to month, between 70.4% and 81.5%. For Ishikawa business hotels, Sunday is the “variable slot that moves every month,” and how it is filled determines monthly occupancy. The 18.0pt gap between Oct 3 and Oct 4 is an extension of this normal day-of-week structure. That the Sunday trough is specific to the business-hotel segment can also be confirmed from day-of-week estimated OCC in Hokkaido Business Hotels Aren’t Weekend-Led: Thu 95.4% Ties Sat 95.4%.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team

What follows from this is that Oct 4 should not be handled as a one-off “first week of October” problem. How Sunday gets filled becomes a template used again every month. The first weekend of October is best treated as an opportunity to rebuild that template, designed so it can be rolled out as-is to the other Sundays in October and November.

Line it up against the weekends either side and Oct 4’s position becomes clear

Using T-45 as a fixed point, place the Friday–Sunday of the preceding week (Sep 25-27), the week in question (Oct 2-4) and the following week (Oct 9-11) side by side. Estimated OCC at T-45 for business hotels reads Fri Sep 25 73.6%, Sat Sep 26 90.2%, Sun Sep 27 70.1%; Fri Oct 2 69.2%, Sat Oct 3 80.8%, Sun Oct 4 65.0%; and Fri Oct 9 73.3%, Sat Oct 10 80.6%, Sun Oct 11 79.1%.

Read across the three weekends, the first weekend of October comes in below the preceding week on all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Saturday stands out in particular: Sep 26 was at 90.2% while Oct 3 is 9.4pt lower at 80.8%. Sep 26 also carried a high sold-out property rate of 46.1% at T-45, and by the latest snapshot (T-30) it had reached estimated OCC of 94.4% (observed 27 August 2026) with a sold-out property rate of 55.9%. Precisely because the late-September weekend is strong, the first weekend of October sits in a relatively slack position.

The following Sunday, Oct 11, meanwhile reads 79.1% at T-45 — 14.1pt above Oct 4’s 65.0%. Its sold-out property rate at T-45 is also 22.2%, more than double Oct 4’s 9.1%. This is because Monday 12 October is Sports Day, making Oct 11 the middle day of a three-day weekend, consistent with the public holiday schedule published by the Cabinet Office. Even between two “Sundays,” booking conditions 45 days out differ this much depending on whether the following day is a weekday or a holiday. Put the other way, Oct 4 is a pure Sunday followed by a working day, and the pillar of demand has to be sought somewhere other than extended stays by out-of-prefecture leisure travellers. The “middle-day” progress pattern, where demand concentrates in the middle of a long weekend, is analysed in detail in Wakayama Silver Week Peaks Midway: Ryokan 93.7% Sun, 82.9% Sat.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team

One more thing worth checking is how much the preceding weekend (Sep 25-27) added between T-45 and T-29 to T-31. Fri Sep 25 went from 73.6% to 77.0%, +3.4pt; Sat Sep 26 from 90.2% to 94.4%, +4.2pt; and Sun Sep 27 from 70.1% to 73.1%, +3.0pt. All three days gained in the 3-4pt range, with Sunday building at a pace not far off Saturday’s. In the Ishikawa business-hotel market, in other words, Sunday too sees a certain inflow across the T-45 to T-30 stretch. That Oct 4 managed only +1.3pt over that stretch is more naturally read as weakness specific to that stay date than as a slow pace in the market itself.

For revenue managers running business hotels in Ishikawa — implications and an action plan

(b) Action plan

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team

In summary — three yardsticks

Yardstick 1: read the slope, not the level. Gains from T-45 to the latest snapshot for Ishikawa business hotels were +2.7pt for Oct 2, +3.5pt for Oct 3 and +1.3pt for Oct 4. Overlay your own curve on those slopes and you can judge whether your pricing and inventory settings are keeping up with the market’s pace.

Yardstick 2: Sunday is the variable slot every month. In confirmed day-of-week results, Sunday swung widely from month to month — 81.5% in May, 70.4% in June, 78.1% in July — and was the lowest of the seven days in all three. Saturday held in the 90s in all three. The design of Sunday is precisely the movable part of monthly occupancy.

Yardstick 3: the same weekday is a different date if the next day differs. At T-45, Sun Oct 4 reads 65.0% against 79.1% for Sun Oct 11, the middle day of a three-day weekend. Splitting inventory and plans by position on the calendar rather than by the day-of-week label is the starting premise for running October weekends.

About the data

• Definition of estimated OCC: occupancy based on OTA listed inventory = 100 − 100 × rooms still listed on OTAs ÷ total rooms. It is an estimate based on how far inventory sold on OTAs has been taken up, and differs in definition from actual room occupancy (it reads high). This article writes it as “estimated OCC (based on OTA listed inventory).”
• Booking curves: based on observations from 45 days before the stay date up to the most recent reading. The X axis is the number of days remaining until the stay date (LT).
• Sold-out property rate: the share of properties for which no listed inventory can be confirmed on OTAs or elsewhere (estimated). It is a snapshot at the time of observation and does not indicate future sales results.
• Breakdown of N: Ishikawa business hotels, N=100 properties and 12,457 rooms in scope (for Oct 4 and Oct 11, N=99 properties and 12,447 rooms; for Sep 25 and Sep 27, N=103 properties and 12,508 rooms; for Sep 26, N=102 properties and 12,269 rooms). The city hotels shown for reference are N=10 properties and 1,748 rooms; with a small base, their levels should be treated as indicative. Monthly day-of-week results are daily observations for the same Ishikawa business hotels averaged by day of week (data for 31 May 2026, 30 June 2026 and 31 July 2026).
• This article does not cover price metrics (estimated settled ADR and the like).
• Data as of 29 August 2026 (latest observation is the reading for 27 August 2026). Sales conditions and inventory move daily, so the figures in this article are a snapshot at the time of retrieval.

References and sources

■ Data source

OTA public price and listed inventory data for roughly 168,000 properties nationwide tracked continuously by MetroEngines Research (of which roughly 27,000 have confirmed occupancy data). The scope of this article is business hotels in Ishikawa, N=100 properties and 12,457 rooms (N=99-103 properties depending on the stay date), with city hotels shown for reference at N=10 properties and 1,748 rooms. Data as of 29 August 2026 (latest observation is the reading for 27 August 2026).

■ Calculation assumptions

Estimated OCC = 100 − 100 × rooms still listed on OTAs ÷ total rooms. LT (lead time) is the number of days remaining until the stay date; T-45 refers to the snapshot 45 days before the stay date. Monthly day-of-week results average daily observations for the same population by day of week (data for 31 May 2026, 30 June 2026 and 31 July 2026). The sold-out property rate is the share of properties for which no listed inventory can be confirmed on OTAs or elsewhere (estimated).

■ Limitations and caveats

Estimated OCC is an estimate based on how far OTA sales inventory has been taken up, and differs in definition from actual room occupancy (it reads high). It is a snapshot at the time of observation rather than an indication of future sales results, and sales conditions and inventory move daily. The city hotels shown for reference have a small base of 10 properties, so their levels should be treated as indicative. This article does not cover price metrics (estimated settled ADR and the like).

• Cabinet Office, “About the National Holidays” (confirmation of the date of Sports Day, 12 October 2026)