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Japan APA Hotels bringing new urban hotel concept to USA with plans for 100 hotels by 2020

APA Hotels & Resorts opens its first property in the USA with APA Woodbridge New Jersey, a conversion from the former Hilton Woodbridge. APA Hotels and Resorts is the largest operator of hotels in Japan with 347 hotels and 56,700 rooms. The new urban hotel concept of this chain is small rooms with energy saving features for electricity and water usage.

The joint venture for USA expansion is a partnership with Friendwell Group of Companies, a major hotel owner in New Jersey. Plans announced this week are for 100 APA Hotels in the USA by 2020. Initial development for APA hotels are proposed for USA airport hubs of Japan Airlines routes including New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

APA Hotels webpage

APA Hotel List – Japan

The new urban concept APA hotel is one designed to reduce energy and water usage by two-thirds compared to the average urban hotel, resulting in significant hotel revenue increases for hotel owners, partly due to reduced operation costs.

APA hotels typically include water-saving oval tubs with thermal and volume regulation rain stoppers to save energy and water. Rooms are equipped with keycard activated energy savings switches and LED lighting, reinforced with environmentally friendly standard operating procedures. –

See more at: Hotel News Now

The idea is also a green concept for hotel guests. Small hotel rooms focus on large beds and large 50-inch TVs. The hotel design concept is focused on travelers who want a bed and space to sleep, not a room to hang out in all day.

APA Woodbridge Hotel New Jersey is scheduled to remain open during the hotel conversion with extensive renovation of public spaces scheduled to be completed by summer 2016 and all room conversions by spring 2017.

3 Comments

  • eponymous coward November 16, 2015

    I stayed in the APA Hotel Tsukiji in Tokyo during a trip (got it for the whopping huge cost of $53 on a last minute deal).

    The room was small (as in barely able to pull the chair out from the desk to sit without hitting the bed) but had a comfortable bed. The in-room magazine was… interesting, apparently APA Hotels’ ownership is exceedingly right wing for Japan, to the point of doing anti-Chinese propaganda in that magazine (and outright denials of Japanese war crimes). You can read more here:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshio_Motoya

  • Deodorant November 16, 2015

    Would be interesting if APA sticks to their modus operandi of extremely small hotel rooms. The one I stayed in at Narita had literally no room on the floor to open even a carry-on.

  • Ric Garrido November 17, 2015

    @Deodorant – I have stayed in a couple of rooms like that where my luggage stayed in the shower space.

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