Is the soaring cost of hotels in Tokyo also a cause? Increased participation in live concerts by overnight bus
Artists, idols, actors, and athletes…… now account for one in four people in Japan who “guess” something, with 32.7% of those in their teens and 20s in particular engaging in “guess-active/wotaku-active” activities (2024, “Survey on Guess-active Activities,” Guess-active Research Institute (2024, Suishikatsu Soken “Survey on Suishikatsu”).
The “guessers” then move and gather at the venue all at once from various locations as the live concert or event is held. Overnight buses are often used for this transportation.
WILLER EXPRESS, a bus company that operates more than 200 routes nationwide, mainly night buses, announced at its strategy presentation in December 2024 that it expects both ridership and average unit price to increase significantly in 2024 compared to the previous year. The company expects to land with increased revenues and profits in 2024.
At the same time, President Koji Hirayama revealed the fact that “WILLER’s night buses are often used by working people to attend live concerts. Whenever there is a live concert or event held at Tokyo Dome, Kyocera Dome Osaka, or Bantelin Dome Nagoya, there is a big crowd of people who travel long distances to attend the event.
Normally, long-distance travel before a live concert would be much easier on the body if the traveler “enters by airplane or Shinkansen the day before and stays overnight in a hotel. However, due to the rapid increase in the number of foreign tourists, the average room rate for hotels in Tokyo, in particular, will double from 8,701 yen in 2022 to 16,556 yen in 2024 (according to a survey by the Tokyo Hotel Association). The cost of one night’s stay is now as high as the cost of a round-trip Shinkansen train ride between Tokyo and Hamamatsu, and from a thrust point of view, spending on this scale should be minimized as much as possible.
When WILLER surveyed users, 81% of them answered that they “feel that hotel rates have become more expensive in the past year” and 62% answered that they used night buses because of the high cost of lodging. Not only is there a shortage of hotels due to the rapid increase in the number of foreign travelers, but also “hotel prices have become more expensive,” which is why the guessers are avoiding lodging and choosing night buses.
And cost is not the only reason why people use express buses for their activities. The “express bus + live concert” seems to fit the behavior style of some of the most enthusiastic members of the “guess activity” group. We actually talked to some of these people.
© Source travel watch
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