The Japanese government is encouraging some of the country's more than 10,000 short-stay love hotels (or rabu hoteru) to convert into "normal" hotels in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, according to Adam Nebbs of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. The move "comes amid worries there will not be enough accommodation in and around Tokyo for the millions of foreign tourists projected to arrive during the Games." The idea is not entirely original; a reported 4,000 love hotels in South Korea were rebranded "world inns" during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Coincidentally, a Japanese company has just launched "Loveinn Japan," the first English-language website aimed at "introducing the culture of love hotels to the world!" The site explains that while these facilities were once considered "cheap, somewhat unclean places," they are now "clean and luxurious accommodations not only for romance, but also for parties and reasonable overnight stays." A "First Visit" manga cartoon "does its best to make staying in a love hotel seem like the obvious choice for straitlaced foreign travellers in search of a cheap and interesting place to stay" (SCMP, 5/29).
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