A small hotel located in Japan’s Fukuoka prefecture offers a special promo for budget travellers.
Regular overnight accommodation at the Asahi Ryokan hotel costs US$27 (S$36), but it can cost only one dollar if the guest agrees to livestream their entire stay at the hotel.
Tetsuya Inoue (27) manages the Asahi Ryokan hotel. He came up with the idea of livestreaming his guests as he was brainstorming on improvements for his business model.
He shared that he got the idea from a British traveller who live-streamed his stay in the hotel.
A video camera is set up in just one room in the hotel, and the audio is disabled so guests can still have private conversations.
Tetsuya explained that guests may also opt to turn off the lights in the room, and the bathroom is off limits as well.
Guests are also prohibited from performing “lewd acts” and sharing their personal information like passport and credit card numbers while being livestreamed.
He only started offering the promo last month, and four guests have already agreed to his terms.
“Young people nowadays don’t care much about the privacy. Some of them say it’s OK to be [watched] for just one day,” Tetsuya shared in an interview with CNN.
He streams and uploads the content on the hotel’s official YouTube channel, One Dollar Hotel.
During streams, strangers all over the world gather together in the chat box to watch what the guests are doing, most of the time they’re just sleeping.
Tetsuya can begin monetizing his channel for ad revenue once it reaches more than 4,000 view hours.
One Dollar Hotel is located in 2-6-2, Kiyokawa, Fukuokashhi, Fukuoka-Prefecture, a city known for its seaside culture./TISG