【嵐ラストツアー】なぜ札幌はホテルが不足するのか？…もんすけ調査隊（HBC今日ドキッ！2026年3月13日 放送）

Client (Nantokataro, Sapporo, 30s) "Why is Sapporo the only place where there's a 'hotel shortage' so often?" For the next three days, the final live concert of the national idol group "Arashi" will be held in Sapporo. The maximum attendance is 150,000 people. Upon arriving at the site… Investigator "There they are! A large number of Arashi fans are gathering over there." Yesterday, upon visiting the Daiwa House Premist Dome, Arashi fans were flocking there, seeking limited-edition merchandise available for pre-sale. However… From Niigata: "It was about 100,000 yen per night around here…" From Tokyo: "About 100,000 yen for two people." From Wakayama: "We booked it as part of a tour, a little over 100,000 yen." As soon as the concert dates were announced, hotel reservations filled up instantly, and hotels that normally cost 10,000 yen skyrocketed to 50,000 yen. It's truly the height of a hotel scramble. In fact, this situation is nothing new. Last November's Snow Man concert also saw a "hotel refugee" phenomenon. Why is Sapporo the only city experiencing such a severe hotel shortage? A review of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's "Report on Sanitary Administration" reveals a surprising fact. Sapporo has a total of just over 38,000 hotel rooms. This is slightly more than Nagoya. So why is Sapporo the only city where there's such a fuss about a "shortage"? According to aviation and travel analyst Kotaro Toriumi: "In Nagoya's case, even with the same number of rooms, after a concert, people can travel to, for example, Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka." In other cities, there are ways to return home or to the surrounding area after a concert, but if you're coming to Sapporo from outside Hokkaido, you have no choice but to stay overnight. Nagoya, including Aichi Prefecture, has a huge "receiving capacity" of nearly 90,000 rooms across three prefectures, and it's easy to travel by train. However, even including surrounding accommodations such as Otaru and Chitose, Sapporo's receiving capacity is only about 8,000 rooms. And then there's the issue of transportation… According to Kotaro Toriumi, an aviation and travel analyst: "Naturally, due to the risk of snow and icy roads, using a rental car to get to a hotel is quite difficult." Even if you go to Asahikawa, which is about 130 kilometers away, while there are a total of 5,100 rooms, the journey takes nearly an hour and a half by express train. This time, JR has taken the unusual step of running extra express trains late at night, but even so, it's still a distance that can hardly be described as a casual "dispersal to the surrounding area." Furthermore, Sapporo's unique "circumstances" are exacerbating the situation. According to Yudai Watanabe, Department Manager at Teikoku Databank: "Taking the average from January to December of last year, the occupancy rate was about 80%. It's almost fully booked." Sapporo is one of Japan's leading event cities, hosting mega-events throughout the year, such as the Snow Festival and sporting events. While the national average hotel occupancy rate is said to be around 60%, Sapporo's 80% figure is unusually high. With such high demand, why aren't new hotels being built? Yudai Watanabe, Department Head, Teikoku Databank "Locations that would normally be suitable for hotels have all been converted into apartments. Just like the tower apartments built in the city center, such as the north exit of Sapporo Station, apartments were prioritized, leaving no land available." In Sapporo's Chuo Ward, nearly 6,500 new apartments have been supplied in the last 10 years. Apartments, which yield profits in 1-2 years, are now prioritized over hotels, which take 10 years to recoup their investment. Yudai Watanabe, Department Head, Teikoku Databank "The hotels currently under construction are luxury hotels. Hotels are shifting towards prices of 50,000 to 100,000 yen per night, so if you're coming for a live event and want a 1-night, 2-day stay, you definitely won't find a hotel costing around 10,000 yen." "Land shortage" and "geographical isolation." Another "mystery" was occurring on-site. There were vacant rooms, but reservations couldn't be made. What exactly was going on? Ryohei Morifuji, Sapporo View Hotel Odori Park "We have rooms available for sale, but in the past, we've had to stop selling them because we didn't have enough staff to clean them." In 2023, after the COVID-19 pandemic, the hotel industry faced a serious labor shortage. Cleaning couldn't keep up, and hotels were forced to reluctantly turn away reservations. This hotel has overcome this obstacle with the latest IT system. Ryohei Morifuji, Sapporo View Hotel Odori Park "We were able to automatically slide information directly from the hotel system to a system called JTAS, eliminating tasks that previously required human intervention. This allowed us to send accurate information without errors." The system also automated the previously handw...