School trips for junior high and high schools in Japan follow a twin-peak structure — spring (May–June) and autumn (October–December). Autumn in particular is heavily weighted toward high schools, and large blocks of rooms are held by groups on weekdays. This article examines five areas — Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Okinawa main island — comparing October–November rate levels against how far inventory has sold at an identical 90-days-before-check-in cross-section, in order to quantify where group demand is setting the weekday rate floor.

How large is the autumn school-trip block?

According to the “Survey and Summary of Domestic School Trips Conducted in FY2024 (High Schools) <Preliminary Edition>” published in November 2025 by the Japan School Tours Bureau (JSTB), 3,200 schools were sampled from 4,774 nationwide and 1,076 responded (33.6% response rate), of which 961 schools (89.3%) ran a domestic school trip. Timing is heavily skewed toward October–December, with October, November, and December all ranking near the top in the survey’s monthly counts. Compared with May–June in spring, the absolute volume in autumn is several times larger.

What about destinations? In the same survey’s prefecture-level destination counts (2,179 total responses, multiple-answer format), Okinawa ranked 2nd with 273 responses (12.5%), Kyoto 3rd with 230 (10.6%), Hiroshima 8th with 112 (5.1%), Nara 9th with 102 (4.7%), and Nagasaki 11th with 71 (3.3%). These five areas alone account for 788 responses, or 36.2% of the total. By primary activity focus, history-focused learning accounted for 803 responses (35.2% of 2,284 total) and peace-focused learning 463 (20.3%) — and these five areas are precisely where those two pillars are hosted.

Area-level statistics are moving too. The Okinawa Prefecture Tourism Policy Division’s “Results of the FY2024 School Trip Arrivals Survey” (published December 2025) reports FY2024 arrivals of 2,084 schools and 358,521 people, up 7.8% (schools) and 5.7% (people) year on year. High schools account for 67.3% by school count (75.2% by headcount), and the report explicitly states that monthly arrivals “concentrate in May–June and October–December, with November the highest for both school count and headcount.” Meanwhile, Hiroshima City’s “2025 Hiroshima City Visitor Numbers” puts school-trip students at 316,000 in 2025, down 4.8% year on year (based on groups admitted to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum). For Nagasaki, the Nikkei reported that as of late October 2025, 53 junior high schools within Tokyo’s 23 wards had placed FY2026 accommodation bookings with the 20 member properties of the Nagasaki City Lodging Facilities Council — roughly 2.8 times the FY2025 level. Kyoto is moving in the opposite direction: as the Kyoto City Tourism Association’s monthly data report shows, Japanese guest nights declined in 2025, partly on reduced school-trip capacity at ryokan in the city.

In short, autumn school trips remain large in aggregate, but the receiving capacity is shifting between areas. The chapters below turn that structure into numbers on weekday inventory and pricing. The same “weekday floor” structure is also observed in the spring travel season, where a comparison of weekday ADR across six cities shows mid-tier hotels forming a comparable rate floor.

October–November rate levels — estimated transacted ADR across 5 areas

Start with the monthly level. Kyoto City’s estimated transacted ADR (11 wards, weighted by property count) is roughly ¥24,300 in October 2026 and roughly ¥28,000 in November. The chart below shows that November is the highest month of the year. Given that summer (June–July) runs ¥11,500–¥12,200, the autumn peak sits at around 2.3 times the summer level.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (Kyoto City, 11 wards, N=373–434 properties)

Table 1: Monthly estimated transacted ADR across 5 areas (October 2025 – November 2026)

Area	Oct 2025	Nov 2025	Oct 2026	Nov 2026	N (Oct 2026)
Kyoto City (11 wards)	¥21,418	¥25,072	¥24,257	¥27,976	392
Nara City	¥15,890	¥17,156	¥15,419	¥18,916	55
Hiroshima City (8 wards)	¥10,113	¥10,997	¥13,013	¥13,604	99
Nagasaki City	¥11,640	¥12,537	¥15,075	¥13,674	58
Okinawa main island	¥13,045	¥12,481	¥14,341	¥12,719	331

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research. October and November 2025 are on an actuals basis; October and November 2026 are estimated from listed levels as of the survey date (the bases differ, so they cannot be compared directly)

Lined up side by side, rates rise in November in three areas — Kyoto City, Nara City, and Hiroshima City — while October exceeds November in Nagasaki City and on the Okinawa main island. The Okinawa main island runs roughly ¥12,700 in November, below October’s roughly ¥14,300. School count and headcount peak in November, yet rates fall — the clearest expression of the fact that inventory held by groups is priced below the individual-guest level.

Viewing weekdays at an identical 90-days-before-check-in cross-section

Rate levels alone do not reveal where the weekday floor sits. So for each day in October we aligned an identical lead-time cross-section — 90 days before check-in (LT90) — and extracted how far inventory had sold along with listed prices. The reason for aligning at LT90 is that the current lead time differs by date; comparing dates as-is would only produce the obvious result that dates further out are less full.

Table 2: Weekday and Saturday occupancy and listed prices at the 90-days-before-check-in (LT90) cross-section (October 2026)

Area	Properties / total rooms	Weekday OCC (Mon–Thu, 15 days)	Saturday OCC (4 days)	Diff.	Weekday listed price	Saturday listed price	Weekday/Sat
Kyoto Prefecture	1,022 properties / 53,309 rooms	73.8%	75.7%	-1.9pt	¥37,462	¥48,854	77%
Nagasaki Prefecture	377 properties / 18,653 rooms	74.5%	72.9%	+1.6pt	¥22,411	¥27,493	82%
Nara Prefecture	182 properties / 7,029 rooms	66.8%	71.4%	-4.6pt	¥27,735	¥41,260	67%
Hiroshima Prefecture	395 properties / 26,563 rooms	66.8%	72.9%	-6.1pt	¥22,118	¥33,258	67%
Okinawa Prefecture	1,155 properties / 52,899 rooms	66.1%	71.2%	-5.1pt	¥25,345	¥30,047	84%

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research. Of October 1–30, 2026, October 28 is excluded because the observed property count was too low, and October 12 (Sports Day) is excluded from the weekday aggregation as a public holiday. Observed property counts at the LT90 cross-section: Kyoto 650–954, Nagasaki 233–334, Nara 109–169, Hiroshima 231–367, Okinawa 769–1,073

The result is clear. In Nagasaki Prefecture, weekday occupancy exceeds Saturday by 1.6pt. In Kyoto Prefecture the gap is just −1.9pt, effectively putting weekdays level with Saturday. Yet listed prices sit at 82% of Saturday in Nagasaki and 77% in Kyoto. Inventory has sold to nearly the same point, but pricing sits roughly 20% lower — that is what the “weekday rate floor held by groups” actually looks like.

By contrast, Hiroshima Prefecture (−6.1pt), Okinawa Prefecture (−5.1pt), and Nara Prefecture (−4.6pt) have not sold weekdays down to the Saturday level. Hiroshima in particular has both the lowest listed price ratio (67% of Saturday) and occupancy that has not caught up. Even among “autumn school-trip areas,” there is a clear hierarchy in how thick the weekday floor is.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (LT90 cross-section; observed property counts Kyoto 650–954 / Nagasaki 233–334)

On a day-by-day basis, Nagasaki forms a plateau above 80% for three consecutive days — October 20 (Tue) 81.7%, October 21 (Wed) 85.3%, and October 22 (Thu) 83.6%. All three had already reached high levels at the start of observation (LT90) and then moved roughly flat through the LT80s. Rather than building up gradually, inventory moves in a large block from the outset. Kyoto likewise shows October 21 (Wed) at 79.8% and October 22 (Thu) at 79.4%, above the nearest Saturday (October 24, 76.3%). Note, however, that October 22 in Kyoto coincides with the Jidai Matsuri and the Kurama Fire Festival, so school trips alone do not explain it. Nagasaki’s October 7–9 (Nagasaki Kunchi) is likewise a period when festival demand overlaps. How supply and demand differ between weekday-held and weekend-held festivals is examined in Nagasaki Kunchi vs. Kishiwada Danjiri.

Comparing with July — how far forward has the autumn weekday shifted?

Even if LT90 produces high numbers, it is necessary to distinguish whether that is “because it is autumn” or simply because the area always runs high at LT90. So we re-extracted exactly the same LT90 cross-section for July 2026, whose stay dates have already passed, as a comparison. July is a month in which school groups are largely absent, making it a control group that reflects a demand structure centered on individual leisure travel.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (both at the LT90 cross-section; weekday = Mon–Thu)

Table 3: LT90 cross-section comparison, July vs October 2026 — weekday OCC level difference and narrowing of the weekday–Saturday gap

Area	July weekday OCC	October weekday OCC	Level diff.	July weekday − Sat	October weekday − Sat	Gap narrowing
Kyoto Prefecture	63.1%	73.8%	+10.7pt	-1.9pt	-1.9pt	+0.0pt
Nagasaki Prefecture	62.8%	74.5%	+11.7pt	-6.2pt	+1.6pt	+7.8pt
Nara Prefecture	54.5%	66.8%	+12.3pt	-3.5pt	-4.6pt	-1.1pt
Hiroshima Prefecture	61.5%	66.8%	+5.3pt	-6.5pt	-6.1pt	+0.4pt
Okinawa Prefecture	66.8%	66.1%	-0.7pt	-4.8pt	-5.1pt	-0.3pt

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research. Valid days at the July LT90 cross-section: Kyoto 13, Nara 15, Hiroshima 13, Nagasaki 19, Okinawa 18; October uses 29 days (common across all areas)

At LT90 in July, weekdays fall below Saturday in all five areas (−1.9 to −6.5pt). That is the standard shape for individual-leisure-led demand. Come October, however, only Nagasaki reverses that relationship, narrowing the gap by 7.8pt versus July. The weekday OCC level itself also rises from 62.8% to 74.5%, up 11.7pt — so it is not simply that Saturday is weak; weekdays have clearly thickened.

Kyoto (63.1% → 73.8%, +10.7pt) and Nara (54.5% → 66.8%, +12.3pt) also see large gains in weekday levels, but Saturday rises by the same amount, so the weekday–Saturday gap is essentially unchanged from July. Autumn demand is working on both weekdays and weekends. Okinawa Prefecture, including the main island, is roughly flat at 66.8% → 66.1% in weekday OCC, showing no forward shift in autumn at the LT90 point. For November, when school counts and headcounts peak, LT90 had not yet been reached as of writing and no booking curve could be obtained, so the assessment here is limited to the October observations.

Which property categories hold up the floor?

Breaking the same LT90 cross-section down by property category makes clear who carries the weekday floor.

Table 4: Weekday and Saturday occupancy and listed-price ratio at the LT90 cross-section, by property category (October 2026)

Area	Category	Properties / rooms	Weekday OCC	Saturday OCC	Diff.	Weekday/Sat listed price
Kyoto Prefecture	City hotel	55 / 10,360 rooms	84.1%	86.0%	-1.9pt	81%
Kyoto Prefecture	Business hotel	283 / 31,116 rooms	73.1%	75.5%	-2.4pt	73%
Kyoto Prefecture	Ryokan	154 / 2,905 rooms	63.6%	61.5%	+2.1pt	79%
Kyoto Prefecture	Resort hotel	11 / 1,142 rooms	70.1%	68.9%	+1.2pt	82%
Nagasaki Prefecture	City hotel	23 / 2,655 rooms	80.0%	74.4%	+5.6pt	98%
Nagasaki Prefecture	Business hotel	112 / 9,546 rooms	77.8%	77.1%	+0.7pt	85%
Nagasaki Prefecture	Ryokan	60 / 1,989 rooms	59.4%	60.0%	-0.6pt	80%
Nagasaki Prefecture	Resort hotel	34 / 2,863 rooms	72.0%	70.5%	+1.5pt	83%
Nara Prefecture	Business hotel	29 / 3,569 rooms	59.3%	67.1%	-7.8pt	51%
Nara Prefecture	Ryokan	69 / 1,426 rooms	71.3%	71.6%	-0.3pt	79%
Hiroshima Prefecture	City hotel	27 / 4,655 rooms	83.0%	83.0%	+0.0pt	64%
Hiroshima Prefecture	Business hotel	158 / 18,672 rooms	63.3%	71.2%	-7.9pt	60%
Hiroshima Prefecture	Ryokan	57 / 1,366 rooms	65.2%	73.3%	-8.1pt	81%
Okinawa Prefecture	City hotel	14 / 3,155 rooms	82.6%	85.8%	-3.2pt	85%
Okinawa Prefecture	Business hotel	180 / 16,816 rooms	58.5%	67.2%	-8.7pt	78%
Okinawa Prefecture	Ryokan	11 / 128 rooms	60.2%	63.9%	-3.7pt	93%
Okinawa Prefecture	Resort hotel	240 / 25,277 rooms	74.9%	77.7%	-2.8pt	85%

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research. Days on which the observed property count fell below 60% of the median, and categories with fewer than 10 target properties, are excluded

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (city hotel category, LT90 cross-section)

City hotels reach weekday OCC of 80% or higher in all four areas, with the gap to Saturday contained within −3.2 to +5.6pt. Hiroshima’s city hotels (27 properties, 4,655 rooms) run 83.0% on weekdays and 83.0% on Saturdays — exactly level — yet list at 64% of the Saturday price. Nagasaki’s city hotels (23 properties, 2,655 rooms) go further: weekday OCC exceeds Saturday by 5.6pt and listed prices sit at 98% of Saturday — they already price weekdays on par with the weekend. The contrast shows that the room to redesign the weekday floor differs greatly by area.

Business hotels diverge sharply. Nagasaki (112 properties, 9,546 rooms) runs 77.8% on weekdays, 0.7pt above Saturday, whereas Okinawa (180 properties, 16,816 rooms) sits at 58.5%, −8.7pt versus Saturday; Hiroshima (158 properties, 18,672 rooms) at 63.3%, −7.9pt; and Nara (29 properties, 3,569 rooms) at 59.3%, −7.8pt. Kyoto (283 properties, 31,116 rooms) is in between at 73.1%, −2.4pt. Ryokan show their own pattern — in Kyoto, weekdays run 2.1pt above Saturday, a distinct movement in the small-scale, high-rate segment.

What the booking curve shows: inventory that is “already in” from the start

The signature of a group block is that a large volume of inventory has already moved in the earliest stage of the lead time. For three early-October dates in Kyoto Prefecture, we overlaid occupancy from LT90 through LT69.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (Kyoto Prefecture, all categories; observed property counts 428–1,004)

October 8 (Thu) had already reached 74.8% at LT90 and advanced 2.1pt to 76.9% by LT69. Over the same span, October 1 (Thu) moved 68.2% → 70.4% (+2.2pt) and October 3 (Sat) 69.9% → 72.1% (+2.2pt). In other words, the gap already present on arrival at LT90 (6.6pt between October 8 and October 1) is larger than the volume that moves over the following three weeks. A gap of that size at this early stage is unlikely to arise from last-minute individual bookings, and is more plausibly driven by group blocks confirmed well in advance.

Nagasaki Prefecture’s October 20–22 is more extreme still, with occupancy running essentially flat across the roughly 10 days from LT90 into the LT80s (81.7% → 81.7%, 85.3% → 85.4%, 83.6% → 83.6%). What was going to fill has already filled, and the remainder is not moving. In terms of rooms remaining, against a total of 18,653 rooms, October 21 shows 2,751 rooms at LT90, October 22 shows 3,017 rooms, and October 20 shows 3,375 rooms.

Implications for revenue management — which days to give to groups, which to keep for individuals

Translating these observations into revenue management design surfaces several revenue opportunities.

First, headroom to lift the weekday floor. In Kyoto and Nagasaki, weekday inventory has already sold to the same level as Saturday. Yet listed prices remain at 77% and 82% of Saturday respectively. That Nagasaki’s city hotels price weekdays at 98% of Saturday is evidence that this level can be accepted by the market. Because gaps of 20–30pt exist between categories even within the same area, a practical starting point is to compare your own property’s weekday-to-Saturday ratio against the category median.

Second, choosing which days to place group blocks on. October weekdays are not uniform. In Kyoto the range runs 11.6pt, from 68.2% on October 1 (Thu) to 79.8% on October 21 (Wed); in Nagasaki it runs 19.2pt, from 66.1% on October 12 (Mon) to 85.3% on October 21 (Wed). Layering groups onto days that have already sold well puts them in competition with high-rate individual demand. Conversely, concentrating groups on relatively softer days such as Mondays and Fridays (Nagasaki’s Monday average runs below Tuesday–Thursday) fills the occupancy trough while keeping Tuesday–Thursday individual allocations available at higher rates.

Third, dividing roles between property categories. Business hotels in Hiroshima, Okinawa, and Nara sit around 8pt below Saturday in weekday OCC, so they still have capacity to serve as the weekday receiving tier. If school-trip intake can be steered toward that tier, it becomes viable to design city-hotel weekday inventory to be held at higher rates for individual and inbound guests. For the area as a whole, this works in the direction of lifting RevPAR.

Fourth, November’s design can be built forward from the October observations. As Okinawa Prefecture’s statistics show, school counts and headcounts peak in November, but November’s booking curve had not yet entered the observation window as of writing. In monthly estimated transacted ADR, Kyoto City rises to roughly ¥28,000 in November (+15.3% vs October), Nara City to roughly ¥18,900 (+22.7%), and Hiroshima City to roughly ¥13,600 (+4.5%), while Nagasaki City falls to roughly ¥13,700 (−9.3%) and the Okinawa main island to roughly ¥12,700 (−11.3%). This asymmetry may reflect the difference between inland areas that pick up autumn-foliage demand and areas with a high group mix — during Kyoto’s foliage peak, spillover demand has been observed shifting to surrounding cities such as Otsu, Kusatsu, and Uji. Rate negotiations for group blocks have room to factor in this seasonal curve.

Summary

Autumn school trips lay a clear floor under weekday inventory in these five areas. Viewed at an identical 90-days-before-check-in cross-section, Nagasaki Prefecture’s weekday occupancy exceeds Saturday by 1.6pt, closing a 7.8pt gap versus the same cross-section in July (−6.2pt). Kyoto Prefecture’s weekday–Saturday gap is likewise just −1.9pt. Listed prices, however, remain at 67–84% of Saturday on weekdays, leaving a gap between how far inventory has actually sold and how it is priced.

That gap is itself the room to redesign. The fact that Nagasaki’s city hotels price weekdays at 98% of Saturday offers one reference point for how far the weekday floor can be lifted. Which days to give to groups and which to keep for individuals — in the time remaining before the autumn peak, there is still a good deal that can be rearranged.

Related Reading

• School Trip Timing Dispersion vs Hotel Price Surge: June 2026 Alternative Business Hotel ADR
• Nagano Late-Summer Booking Curve 2026: Ryokan -11.8pt at 45 Days Out
• Okinawa’s 2% Lodging Tax: ¥60–¥340 per Guest Night by Municipality
• Nagasaki Kunchi vs. Kishiwada Danjiri: Weekday vs. Weekend Hotel Demand