The law will allow vacant rooms in private housing to be leased to tourists and others for up to 180 days a year.
Ahead of the introduction of a law to regulate minpaku (private lodging services) in June, dozens of governments nationwide have begun drawing up their own rules under the new law.
The law will allow vacant rooms in private housing to be leased to tourists and others for up to 180 days a year.
Under the law, prefectural governments and designated major cities will be able to confine minpaku services to certain districts and time periods via ordinances. This is to prevent trouble from erupting between clients and residents of neighbourhoods hosting such facilities.
The Kyoto Prefectural Government plans to prohibit minpaku services in residential-only districts during “periods when the number of tourists surge” there.
Specific periods for restriction are also being designated for some individual municipalities.
The prefectural capital of Kyoto, a government ordinance-designated city, will not be subject to the ordinance but plans to limit minpaku services to only January and February. Similar restrictions will be set in municipalities around the ancient city, which attracts scores of tourists.
In Tokyo’s Meguro Ward, the private lodging services will be available to overnight guests on Fridays and Saturdays only.
For similar reasons, Sapporo and Kanazawa, the capitals of Hokkaido and Ishikawa, respectively, will ban minpaku services on weekdays.
Despite these restrictions, some other authorities do not plan to impose limits on the emerging sector. Osaka is among the few cities that have no plans to set restrictions on when or where minpaku services can be offered.
In the city, it is believed that more than 10,000 rooms are used for minpaku at present, though many are operating illegally, attracting complaints from residents, sources familiar with the situation said.
Under the new law, minpaku operators are obliged to notify authorities of their business operations, which the municipal government expects will help address such complaints.