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Hotels (Taiga Suzuki) TOP PAGE
Introduction
It is no surprise that there are many hotels In Kabuki-cho. This is because this city is one of the most popular tourist spots in Japan which a great number of people from other prefectures or even abroad would love to visit. However, among the large number of hotels in Kabuki-cho, a kind which we most frequently see is Hotels (see figure 1); which is a type of short-stay hotel for the purpose of allowing people privacy for intimate activities. Through the observation for the past few months, we found signboards of hotels much more than that of resort hotels or business hotels, especially in what we call “The hotels district” in Kabuki-cho (see the Map below).
Figure 1 Hotel
↑Here are exteriors of three hotels that demonstrate the variety present in Shinjuku, Kabuki-cho.
Map
Hotels in Kabuki-cho are clustered in Kabuki-cho 2 chome. Particularly, they stand close together in areas that have a number of back streets.
One of the first identifiable ways of protecting privacy is through the locations of hotels.
As Basil says in his article Japanese Love Hotels: Protecting Privacy For Private Encounters, hotels in Kabuki-cho seem to stand in quieter places where fewer people pass by for the sake of the user’s privacy.
The pink area indicates Kabuki-cho 2 chome, which is called the Hotels District. The blue pin shows the location of hotels that were found through the research.
Figure 3 City Hotel
Figure 2 Business Hotel
This page will focus on the signboards of hotels in Kabuki-cho, first introducing kinds of hotels and then discussing the contents, focus, strategies for appealing, and language use of hotel signboards in the subpages.
We have found more than 50 hotels in Kabuki-cho through the fieldwork. We believe it is important to analyze their signboards because they clearly play an important role in creating the cityscape. This page aims to reveal the ways hotel signboards give impact to the uniqueness and distinctiveness of Kabuki-cho.
Pages
Introductory page
Subpages (Analysis)
Conclusion
In Kabuki-cho, there are an immense number of hotels. As each hotel has its own concepts and themes, its appearance is quite different from other types of hotels such as business hotels and city hotels. If you go into Kabuki-cho 2 chome area, you will see great numbers of signboards showing information that is necessary before going in. In addition, as hotels are considered to be protecting privacy (Basil, 2007), many are located in secluded parts of Kabuki-cho. This makes the flashy yet refined neon lights and unusual building exteriors of hotels look even more distinctive. Thus, we conclude that they clearly play a significant role in shaping the uniqueness of the Kabuki-cho cityscape.