Luxury hotels rising from Kobe's rubble

KOBE--What a difference 13 years makes. Kobe, much of it reduced to rubble in the Great Hanshin Earthquake of Jan. 17, 1995, has pretty much bounced back.

So much so that luxury hotel developers are targeting this beautiful port city.

By the end of 2009, Kobe will boast six new hotels in its downtown alone. The newcomers will add about 1,000 rooms to the city's current capacity of about 8,000 rooms.

The new Kobe, rebuilt with safety in mind, is being promoted as a prime destination for leisure and business travelers alike.

"Just 10 years ago, who could have imagined what's happening now?" said an official at a developer connected with projects in Kobe for many years.

At Kobe Port, construction of the Hotel La Suite Kobe Harborland is under way. The hotel is to open this fall.

All 70 rooms will be luxury suites, each with a floor space of 70 square meters or more. Charges will range from 40,000 yen to 150,000 yen per night.

The deluxe hotel stands just 200 meters from the Kobe Port Tower, a local landmark. A pier for excursion boat tours sits right across the street.

On the plot just east of the hotel, bought by Life Stage Co. through municipal government bidding last February, a rival will soon appear.

The buyer, an Osaka-based real estate company, initially planned only a commercial building for the site, but later decided to add a 60-room hotel to the top. The complex will be completed in spring 2009.

Meanwhile, a 350-room hotel will open on a wharf at Kobe Port in September 2009 in a joint project overseen by real estate investment fund KK DaVinci Advisors.

Two facilities are planned in the city's old foreign settlement.

Mitsui Fudosan Co., a real estate developer, is building a 17-story hotel on the former site of Oriental Hotel, which was destroyed by the Great Hanshin Earthquake. The hotel, which will have 100-200 rooms, is to be completed in 2009.

In October, hotel developer Resorttrust Inc. will open a 13-story, 140-room hotel.

A sixth hotel, a budget facility with about 200 rooms, will be in Kobe's Chinatown, known as Nankin-machi.

Akira Kurihara, head of development and planning at Life Stage, said Kobe made sure it retained its historic elements during postquake reconstruction.

"Kobe has added an atmosphere of an urban resort to its strengths now that it has recovered," Kurihara said.

A Mitsui Fudosan official echoed the idea that the city's attraction as a tourist destination lies in preserving its natural and urban beauty.

In the past three years, developers have filed five or six applications annually for hotel projects, up from one or two before then, the city government said.

And visitor numbers are climbing, in keeping with developers' predictions.

In 2006, 29.2 million tourists visited Kobe, its second-highest number on record. The figure for 2007 is expected to be about the same.

Kobe's recovery has been impressive. In 1995, the year of the quake, it saw only 10.74 million tourists--less than half the number that had visited a year earlier.

An encouraging sign is that, in 2006, tourists lodging at least one night in the city exceeded 30 percent for the first time since 1995.

Kobe's six major hotels have seen improved occupancy rates for the past two years. It is growing increasingly difficult to reserve a room on weekends.

Industry officials say tourists are flocking back to see the new Kobe--long considered one of Japan's most fashionable cities.

The opening of Kobe Airport in 2006 helped, as did an increase in the number of companies operating on the reclaimed land of Port Island.

Resorttrust President Katsuyasu Ito said he decided to build the hotel as soon as the company found land in the foreign settlement.

"Kobe, long burdened by reconstruction efforts, is now in a new forward-looking phase in which it will make the best of its potential," Ito said.

Operators of the city's existing hotels appear to share his optimism.

"With more hotels built, we will be able to attract more people to Kobe, with resulting synergy," said a senior official at one large hotel.(IHT/Asahi: January 16,2008)