Death of the ‘minpaku’

ILLEGAL PRIVATE lodging facilities have decreased in number in Japan while the price of legal rentals has risen due to the scarcity of available rooms after the Private Lodging Business Law came into force on June 15.
The law establishes rules for offering private lodgings – known as minpaku in Japanese – in which visitors pay to stay in private homes, requiring operators to register with relevant municipalities.
As of July 6, the number of registered minpaku operators stood at 5,397 – falling from about 60,000 operators that were posted on intermediary websites in the spring.
On Sunday, foreign tourists carrying luggage left a minpaku accommodation operated by a company affiliated with Tobu Railway Co near Tokyo Skytree in Sumida Ward. 
The guests, a 23-year-old British man and a 25-year-old Chinese woman, said they selected the facility because of its convenient location.

Travellers from Hong Kong arrive at a private lodging facility in Sumida Ward, Tokyo. 
Photo/The Japan NewsYomiuri

The room was clean and comfortable but slightly expensive, they said. They paid about 30,000 yen (Bt9,000) per night.
After the law came into force, many illegal minpaku operators pulled out of the market. However, demand remained strong among foreign visitors.
The decline in the supply has hiked room rates by 50 per cent in Tokyo, according to Kurumi Ishii, a certified administrative-procedures legal specialist who has written a book about private lodgings.
In one case, a lodging that cost 20,000 yen per night before the law’s enactment has since soared to 30,000 yen, she said.
Many operators who had previously registered with intermediary websites have pulled out of the business because of the increased burden. Under the new law, operators can only rent accommodations for a maximum of 180 days a year, which makes it difficult to turn a profit. The law also requires operators to maintain a guest registry.
Some municipal governments impose tougher rules. For instance, operators in Kyoto are urged to consult with city authorities prior to registration – a requirement not stipulated in the new law or any city ordinance. Meanwhile, websites have taken measures to exclude unregistered operators.
In light of such circumstances, some operators have begun shifting to other businesses.
Since the law came into force, Residence Tokyo, a Tokyo-based real estate firm that develops and operates condominiums for short-term rentals, has received about 200 inquiries from people who are believed to have operated illegal minpaku businesses before the enactment. Some called for help, saying they now had no customers, according to the firm.
Some operators plan to lease the properties that were previously offered as minpaku rentals as regular apartment rentals.
And yet some operators still continue to operate illegally.
Major private lodging website operator Airbnb requires operators to add the registration numbers provided by local governments to post properties on its site. Even so, the company has found certain operators using fake numbers.
“It takes some time to confirm whether operators have completed proper procedures, making it hard to completely eliminate unlawful operators,” said an Airbnb staff member in charge of the matter.