The three-day weekend starting Saturday, November 21 and including Labor Thanksgiving Day (Monday, November 23) sits at the core of the autumn foliage season for Kyoto’s lodging market. Checking the booking curves as of October 22, 2026, Kyoto Prefecture business hotels for the first night, Saturday 11/21, had reached an estimated OCC at 31 days before the stay date (observed 10/21) (OTA listed-inventory basis) of 98.3% with a sold-out property rate of 75.1%, while city hotels stood at 97.0% and ryokan at 96.6% — remaining inventory is thin in all three segments. Within the same long weekend, however, there is a clear step-down: the middle day, Sunday 11/22, is at 93.8% for business hotels and the final day, Monday 11/23, at 81.7%, while the preceding regular Saturday, 11/14, is at 93.0% at 24 days out — 5.3pt below the first night of the long weekend. This article lines up four dates — the first day, middle day and final day of the long weekend plus the preceding Saturday — on the same yardstick. Referring to how October’s Sports Day three-day weekend (10/10–12) filled over its last 30 days, it then lays out, in the form of a back-calculated calendar, how to sell the remaining 11/14 inventory at T-30/T-14 and when to close the first night of the long weekend.

Scope: Kyoto Prefecture business hotels N=197–198 properties (19,276–19,340 rooms), city hotels N=37 properties (5,084 rooms), ryokan N=128–132 properties (2,283–2,360 rooms). 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 given at the end of the article. Data as of: October 22, 2026.

First Night 11/21 — All Three Segments Above 96% at 31 Days Out; Business Hotel Sold-Out Rate at 75.1%

First, we pin down the four stay dates at two points: 45 days out and the latest observation. For the first night of the long weekend, Saturday 11/21, Kyoto Prefecture business hotels (N=197 properties / 19,276 rooms) built up 5.1pt, from an estimated OCC of 93.2% at 45 days out to 98.3% at 31 days out (observed October 21, 2026), and the share of properties with no listed inventory visible on OTAs and other channels (the sold-out property rate) rose from 61.2% to 75.1%. Remaining inventory on a listed basis is just 329 rooms in total. City hotels (N=37 properties / 5,084 rooms) moved from 95.0% to 97.0%, and ryokan (N=128 properties / 2,283 rooms) from 92.3% to 96.6%; the ryokan sold-out property rate of 74.2% is almost the same as that of business hotels. Why estimated OCC and the sold-out property rate can tell different stories for the same stay date is explained, using Tokyo’s three segments as an example, in our analysis of estimated OCC versus sell-out rate.

Comparing this with the preceding regular Saturday, 11/14, at the same lead time (31 days out) makes the gap clear. 11/14 stood at 89.6% for business hotels, 90.9% for city hotels and 86.6% for ryokan, so 11/21 is ahead by +8.7pt (business), +6.1pt (city) and +10.0pt (ryokan). The gap is largest for ryokan, which can be read as demand for itineraries that stay on the first night of the long weekend and tour the foliage on the middle day booking early, on the premise of a multi-night stay. At the latest observation (24 days out for 11/14), 11/14 has reached 93.0% for business hotels, 92.6% for city hotels and 89.7% for ryokan, approaching the level the first night of the long weekend showed at 45 days out. Read together with our snapshot as of October 9 that compared Kyoto ryokan rooms-left rates with Nagano and other prefectures, Nov 21–23 Foliage Weekend: Kyoto Ryokan 18% Rooms Left, Nagano 32%, this lets you trace how bookings progressed over these two weeks.

Estimated OCC (OTA listed-inventory basis); sold-out property rate = share of properties with no listed inventory visible on OTAs and other channels (estimate); rooms left = total listed remaining rooms. Latest = observed October 21, 2026. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Middle Day 11/22 and Final Day 11/23 — A Step of More Than 16pt Remains Within the Long Weekend

Next, looking at the three days of the long weekend in order, the remaining inventory is far from uniform. Business hotels are at 98.3% on the first night versus 93.8% on the middle day (11/22) and 81.7% on the final day (11/23) — a 16.6pt gap between the first and final days. In listed remaining inventory, that is 329 rooms on the first night against 1,205 on the middle day and 3,532 on the final day, leaving more than 10 times as many rooms on the final day. City hotels are at 97.0% / 95.3% / 82.3% for the first, middle and final days, with the final day barely moved from 45 days out (82.2%). Ryokan are at 96.6% / 92.1% / 75.6%, with a relatively large 565 rooms left on the final day.

However, the lower final day is a shape produced by the structure of a long weekend itself and does not mean demand is weak. Taking the settled curves of October’s Sports Day three-day weekend (Sat 10/10, Sun 10/11, Mon 10/12) as a reference, business hotels landed the first day (10/10) at 99.7% just before the stay (1 day out) from 94.5% at 30 days out, while the middle day (10/11) built 11.5pt from 84.2% at 30 days out to 95.7%, and the final day (10/12) built 11.9pt from 76.8% to 88.7%. In other words, the bigger the step for the middle and final days at 30 days out, the more they added over the last 30 days. Ryokan went 81.8%→99.1%, 71.8%→97.9% and 60.4%→89.3% over the same three days, adding 17–29pt in the last 30 days — a clearly greater reliance on last-minute demand than hotels.

Kyoto Prefecture business hotels, N=195–198 properties. Estimated OCC (OTA listed-inventory basis). X-axis = days remaining until the stay date (45→1). 10/10 is a settled curve; the four November dates show progress up to the observation of October 21, 2026. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Applying this October pattern to the three November days, the middle day 11/22 (business 93.8% at 32 days out) sits almost exactly where the first day 10/10 was at 30 days out (94.5%), so it is likely to run its last 30 days at a pace close to a first night. On the other hand, the final day 11/23 (81.7% at 33 days out) is 2.5pt below the middle day 10/11 at 30 days out (84.2%) and 4.9pt above the final day 10/12 at 30 days out (76.8%). Its current position is a final day sitting between a middle day and a final day, and the natural approach is to design it not as a “day to sell out” but as a “day to build up late.”

Kyoto Prefecture ryokan, N=122–132 properties. Estimated OCC (OTA listed-inventory basis). X-axis = days remaining until the stay date (45→1). 10/10 and 10/12 are settled curves; the four November dates show progress up to the observation of October 21, 2026. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Kyoto Prefecture: business N=195–196 properties, city N=37 properties, ryokan N=122–126 properties. Estimated OCC (OTA listed-inventory basis), settled curves. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Preceding Saturday 11/14 — Ahead of October’s Regular Saturday, With Inventory Thinning After the T-30 Wall

At the same time, the preceding regular Saturday, 11/14, is not just “an ordinary weekend sandwiched between long weekends.” The latest estimated OCC at 24 days out is 93.0% for business hotels, 92.6% for city hotels and 89.7% for ryokan; compared with the regular October Saturday 10/17 at 24 days out (business 90.2%, city 93.2%, ryokan 74.6%), business hotels are 2.8pt ahead and ryokan 15.1pt ahead. Only city hotels are in roughly the same position as on 10/17, but the build-up since 45 days out — business +10.3pt, city +6.1pt, ryokan +6.5pt — is larger than for the first night 11/21 over the same period (+5.1pt, +2.0pt, +4.3pt). While the first night is already close to the ceiling with little headroom, 11/14 is at the stage of filling quickly while still having room to build. The pattern of regular autumn Saturdays in Kyoto adding double-digit points from 45 days out to the last minute is also confirmed in our analysis showing Kyoto’s autumn Saturdays aren’t settled at 45 days out.

In terms of the scale of remaining inventory, 11/14 still has 1,355 listed rooms at business hotels, 375 at city hotels and 243 at ryokan. Referring to the pattern of 10/17, which built 6.7pt from 90.2% at 24 days out to 96.9% at 1 day out, 11/14 would reach the 99% range if it built by the same amount. However, because its pace since 45 days out has been faster, you should expect fewer rooms to remain in the last two weeks than in October, and if the market-wide sold-out property rate approaches the level 11/21 showed at 31 days out (75.1%) around T-14 (10/31), the way to sell the remaining inventory enters a phase that switches from “filling” to “choosing.”

November’s Estimated Settled ADR — November 2025 Was Near the Year’s Peak at ¥21,600 Business, ¥32,000 City and ¥33,700 Ryokan

On pricing, we compare monthly estimated settled ADR (tax-excluded equivalent) between finalized months. In November 2025, Kyoto Prefecture recorded ¥21,600 for business hotels (N=314 properties), ¥32,000 for city hotels (N=58 properties) and ¥33,700 for ryokan (N=191 properties); for business hotels and ryokan this was the highest month of the 12 months of 2025. City hotels ranked just behind April (¥32,600, N=57). Business hotels in 2025 bottomed at ¥10,100 in January and ¥9,900 in February and had twin peaks of ¥20,000 in April and ¥21,600 in November, so November supported rates more than double those of January–February. In September 2026, the latest finalized month, business hotels were at ¥11,700 (N=327), city hotels at ¥20,200 (N=61) and ryokan at ¥19,700 (N=197); against the same month a year earlier (business ¥12,000, city ¥23,600, ryokan ¥18,600) that is −2.4% for business, −14.6% for city and +6.1% for ryokan, with the direction split by segment.

Kyoto Prefecture business hotels (N=312–329 properties) and city hotels (N=55–64 properties). Estimated settled ADR (tax-excluded equivalent). Solid line = finalized values; dotted line = estimate based on current sales status (subject to change). Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

The current estimates for November 2026 are ¥24,600 for business hotels (N=321), ¥34,800 for city hotels (N=64) and ¥30,000 for ryokan (N=197); all are estimates based on current sales status, and a simple comparison with last year’s finalized values must wait until the month is finalized. What matters here is not whether the level is up or down, but the combination of November being the month at the very top of Kyoto’s annual price calendar and, within it, listed inventory for the first night of the long weekend already being thin at 31 days out. Because monthly ADR does not show daily prices, this article does not address price differences between the individual days of the long weekend.

Landing Range for the Last 30 Days — Applying the Remaining-Inventory Absorption Rates of Four October Dates to November

To turn the comparisons so far into a sales plan, we took the percentage of remaining inventory that each October reference date absorbed from the same lead time to 1 day out (the remaining-inventory absorption rate) and applied it to the latest observation of the four November dates (October 21, 2026) to estimate where they would land at 1 day out. The results are laid out as scenarios depending on which pattern — first day, middle day, final day or regular Saturday — a date follows; unlike adding the build-up in points, this method never exceeds 100%. For business hotels, the final day 11/23 (81.7% at 33 days out) would land at 91.5% under the final-day pattern (10/12, absorption rate 53.7%), 95.3% under the middle-day pattern (10/11, 74.6%) and 99.2% under the first-day pattern (10/10, 95.4%) — a spread of about 8pt for the same date depending on the assumed pattern. The preceding Saturday 11/14 (93.0% at 24 days out) comes to 97.8% under the regular-Saturday pattern (10/17, absorption rate 68.4%), lower than the “99% range if it builds by the same amount” in the previous section. With fewer rooms left, the same absorption rate translates into a smaller build-up.

The city hotel final day shows the widest spread by pattern: 87.2% under the final-day pattern (10/12, absorption rate 27.5%) versus 98.0% under the first-day pattern, a 10.8pt gap. On 10/12, city hotels went from 81.9% at 30 days out to 86.8% at 1 day out, adding less than 5pt over the last 30 days, so it is hard to assume that the city hotel final day “fills at the last minute.” Ryokan, by contrast, reach 93.5% even under the final-day pattern and 93.1% under the regular-Saturday pattern, the lowest of the four, so the spread by pattern stays at 5.8pt (93.1–98.9%). A decision to decouple final-day pricing from the first night can be read as pointing toward waiting for last-minute demand at ryokan, and toward easing conditions early at city hotels.

Estimate = latest estimated OCC + (100 − latest estimated OCC) × reference date’s remaining-inventory absorption rate. Remaining-inventory absorption rate = share of listed remaining rooms the reference date reduced from the same lead time to 1 day out. Bold = the pattern corresponding to the stay date’s position. These are estimates that do not account for listed inventory being added or withdrawn or for price revisions, and they are not forecasts. Estimated OCC (OTA listed-inventory basis); latest = observed October 21, 2026. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

For Revenue Managers Running Business Hotels, City Hotels and Ryokan in Kyoto — Implications and Action Plan

Decision-trigger figures are the market values presented in the article. Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team

Summary — A Yardstick That Reads the Long Weekend as “Three Separate Days”

To sum up, Kyoto’s Labor Thanksgiving three-day weekend can be read through the following three points. First, the first night 11/21 is above 96% in all three segments at 31 days out, with sold-out property rates of 75.1% for business hotels and 74.2% for ryokan — the market’s remaining inventory is already scarce. Second, the step of 93.8% on the middle day and 81.7% on the final day (business hotels) is the shape of a long weekend’s structure rather than weak demand; in the settled curves of October’s three-day weekend, the middle and final days each built more than 11pt in the last 30 days before landing. Third, the preceding regular Saturday 11/14 is at 93.0% at 24 days out, ahead of October’s regular Saturday, and is not a date to be hidden in the shadow of the long weekend and put off. Using three patterns as a yardstick — lean toward closing on the first night, toward keeping the final day open, and handle the preceding Saturday at the same pace as the first night of the long weekend — should make it easier to build the sales calendar for the remaining four weeks.

About the Data

References and Sources

■ Data sources

For business hotels, city hotels and ryokan in Kyoto Prefecture: booking curves built from daily observations of OTA listed inventory (45 days before the stay date to the latest point; the four November dates up to the observation of October 21, 2026, and the four October dates as finalized values up to 1 day out), and monthly estimated settled ADR (January 2025–December 2026; from October 2026 onward, estimates based on current sales status). Source: MetroEngines Research.

■ Estimation assumptions

The landing estimates in Table 3 take the share of listed remaining rooms that each October reference date (10/10, 10/11, 10/12, 10/17) absorbed from the same lead time as each November date’s latest observation (24, 31, 32 and 33 days out) to 1 day out, and apply it directly to each November date’s remaining inventory. Covered properties are a fixed cohort for each stay date, and each segment uses reference dates from the same segment.

■ Limitations and caveats

Because estimated OCC is based on OTA listed inventory, it reads higher than actual room occupancy. The estimates do not reflect listed inventory being added or withdrawn, price revisions, or whether the foliage colors early or late. The reference dates are observations of a single long weekend and a single regular Saturday in October 2026, so the landing ranges should be used not as forecasts but as a yardstick for checking your own pace.

Source: MetroEngines Research; compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team