シティホテル業界 = fixed English equivalent?

[Jonathan Merz]

Hello, all.  Does anyone happen to know if there's an accepted English equivalent for 「シティホテル業界」? Up until now I would have just rendered シティホテル as "City Hotel" since I had only seen it used in proper names so far, but apparently in Japan it's considered an actual sub-section of the hotel industry. To quote hatena:

「都市か都市近郊に立地し、宴会場とレストランを備えた総合ホテルのこと。

　宿泊料金は一般的にビジネスホテルより割高だが、競争の激化により格安で宿泊できる場合も。

経営的には売上に占める宿泊収入が全体の50％未満である場合が多く、婚礼・宴会が収益源となっている。」

A google search for "city hotel industry", however, doesn't bring up any results that suggest that this is considered a specific sub-industry in the English-speaking world. Do you all think "urban hotel industry" would suffice?  Or might a rendering such as "Japan's 'city hotel' industry" be better in order to convey the fact that this is a specific type of hotel in Japan?

Jonathan Merz
ジョナサン・メルツ

[Alan Siegrist]

Jonathan Merz writes:

> 「都市か都市近郊に立地し、宴会場とレストランを備えた総合ホテルのこと。
> 　宿泊料金は一般的にビジネスホテルより割高だが、競争の激化により格安で
> 宿泊できる場合も。経営的には売上に占める宿泊収入が全体の50％未満である

> 場合が多く、婚礼・宴会が収益源となっている。」
>
> A google search for "city hotel industry", however, doesn't bring up any
> results that suggest that this is considered a specific sub-industry in
> the English-speaking world. Do you all think "urban hotel industry" would
> suffice? Or might a rendering such as "Japan's 'city hotel' industry" be
> better in order to convey the fact that this is a specific type of hotel
> in Japan?

I think the "city hotel industry" or even the even "urban hotel industry" is pretty obscure and does not allude to the fact that we are really talking about hotels that mostly provide wedding and banquet facilities. You might want to emphasize that aspect in the translation, so something like the "hospitality and banquet industry" might perhaps be more understandable, depending on the purpose of the translation.

Regards,

Alan Siegrist
Carmel, CA, USA

[Jonathan Merz]

2009/10/16 Alan Siegrist <AlanFS...@comcast.net>

I think the "city hotel industry" or even the even "urban hotel industry" is pretty obscure and does not allude to the fact that we are really talking about hotels that mostly provide wedding and banquet facilities. You might want to emphasize that aspect in the translation, so something like the "hospitality and banquet industry" might perhaps be more understandable, depending on the purpose of the translation.

Alan, thanks for the input.

I neglected to mention that the term came up in the context of a short business article discussing strategies businesses have employing in order to increase sales even within a flagging economy.  This particular paragraph was talking about how one particular シティホテル, namely the Keio Plaza, has been able to boost revenue from foreign business customers by offering reduced rate packages on their website. Since room occupancy rates was the focus of the paragraph, "hospitality and banquet industry" wasn't really on the mark here, though I could imagine it serving in a different context.

I ended up paraphrasing it as "[Business is down at] Japan's 'city hotels', higher-end hotels that double as wedding and banquet halls."

- Jonathan Merz
ジョナサン・メルツ