Kyushu and Okinawa, in Southwestern Japan: What Kind of Trip Would You Like to Take?
Kyushu is one of Japan’s major islands, located southwest of Honshu. Okinawa is an island region extending farther to the southwest of Kyushu.
This article covers eight prefectures: Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Okinawa.
Volcanoes, hot springs, and green mountains. Historic streets and islands surrounded by blue seas. Different places offer different landscapes and cultures.
You might explore a city and enjoy its food, or relax in a hot spring. You can also visit an island and spend some quiet time looking out over the sea.
If you have been here before, think of the hotels or other places you stayed. If you are planning a visit, imagine somewhere you would like to stay.
Take a moment to picture your own journey.
How have Kyushu and Okinawa’s hotels and ryokan—traditional Japanese inns—changed through the pandemic?
We will compare guest nights in 2019, before the pandemic; 2021, during it; and 2025, after it, through a map and a data card.
As a way to get to know Kyushu and Okinawa, shall we explore together how its hotels and ryokan have changed?
Explore Hotels and Ryokan in Kyushu and Okinawa on the Map
Select a prefecture on the map to see total guest nights, the share accounted for by foreign nationals, establishments, guest rooms, room occupancy, and other figures. Switch between 2019, 2021, and 2025 to compare changes through the pandemic.
You can also search by prefecture name, use voice search, or move to other regions using the buttons at the bottom of the screen.
Start with a prefecture you have visited or somewhere you would like to go.
How Have Guest Nights Changed in Kyushu and Okinawa?
Total guest nights in the eight prefectures of Kyushu and Okinawa fell from 91,559,200 in 2019 to 44,305,720 in 2021. This was roughly half the 2019 level. They then rose to 98,265,920 in 2025.
The recovery rate for 2025 compared with 2019 was 107.3%. Across Kyushu and Okinawa as a whole, guest nights exceeded the pre-pandemic level.
Guest nights for foreign nationals exceeded the 2019 level, and their share of total guest nights increased. Guest nights for Japanese nationals were close to the 2019 level.
Both the number of hotels and ryokan and the number of guest rooms increased compared with fiscal 2019.
Switch between the data card’s tabs to see the breakdown of guest nights, establishments and guest rooms, and licenses issued and closures across the lodging industry as a whole. Comparing the card with the map reveals differences between the figures for Kyushu and Okinawa as a whole and those for each prefecture.
What I Noticed While Making the Map
Guest nights in Kyushu and Okinawa as a whole exceeded the pre-pandemic level. Yet, when you look at individual prefectures, total guest nights, room occupancy, and guest nights for foreign nationals did not move in the same way.
Some prefectures exceeded pre-pandemic levels on all three measures, while others remained below them on all three. Take a look at the changes in each prefecture that the regional total alone cannot reveal.
From places you remember to places you would like to visit next.
Shall we explore how hotels and ryokan in Kyushu and Okinawa have changed, moving between the map and the data card?
Sources: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Report on Public Health Administration and Services; Japan Tourism Agency, Accommodation Survey.
- Accommodation figures cover the calendar years 2019, 2021, and 2025 (January–December).
- Figures for establishments, guest rooms, licenses issued, and closures cover fiscal years 2019, 2021, and 2024.
- Guest nights count each guest for each night of their stay. One person staying for three nights counts as three guest nights.
- The maps and data cards use the Japanese labels “日本人” (“Japanese”) and “外国人” (“foreign nationals”) to reflect the statistical categories. Guest nights for Japanese nationals are calculated by subtracting guest nights for foreign nationals from total guest nights.
- The recovery rate is calculated as total guest nights in 2025 ÷ total guest nights in 2019 × 100.