In many ways, Japan’s love hotels are a brilliant concept, offering a room with discreet staff, simple amenities, and large beds for couples looking for a place to physically and nakedly express their feelings for one another. There is one sticky point to utilizing them, however.
People generally find themselves in need of a love hotel when overcome by a spontaneous wave of passion, so they don’t usually book ahead. And while a hand-in-hand dash to the love hotel district can be a bit of heady fun, finding a place to do the deed is sort of a time-sensitive objective. Spending too much time walking around searching for a hotel with a vacancy can put a damper on the mood and/or contribute to your sobering up and realizing that maybe it isn’t a good idea to sleep with your boss’ nubile 23-year-old daughter, no matter how willing she says she is.
Such problems may soon come to be a thing of the past, though, with a new smartphone app that can help you find and book a love hotel in as little as 10 seconds, plus, right now, even help you out with the bill.
Called Tonight for Two, the app is an offshoot of Tonight, the smartphone reservation system from developer GREE that has a few uncanny similarities to the American-produced app Hotel Tonight. Love Hotels, though, are unique to Tonight for Two, which is Japan’s first smartphone app that allows users to reserve rooms in the unique lodging category.
Designed under the theory that you want a love hotel that’s close by (because otherwise you could just go back to your place), Tonight for Two first scans your phone’s GPS to determine your location, then gives you a list of nearby options with current vacancies linked to a map.
Once you find something you like, tap it, and you’ll get more information, plus more revealing photos of the rooms.
If you’re ready to dive in, you can use your credit card to book right then and there, and there even seems to be a point system where repeat Tonight for Two users can earn discounts on future stays. Once the confirmation screen comes up, slide your finger to the right to confirm, and it’s all done but the fun.
▼ If your date is watching, remember to slide your finger seductively.
During the process, there’s also a message that pops up asking the user to confirm that he or she is over 18. This impressive display of corporate responsibility by GREE will no doubt be monumental in reducing the rates of teen pregnancy and STDs among minors who are too scrupulous to lie to a machine despite having no way of getting caught. We’re glad someone is looking out for this high-risk segment of our planet’s fragile youth.
Tonight for Two just launched on August 11, and is still very early into its campaign of signing member hotels. Currently there are only 30 properties, spread out among Tokyo and six prefectures in east Japan, but GREE promises more will be coming soon. As if by way of apology, new users of the app, which can be downloaded from Google Play and iTunes here and here, respectively, will receive 2,000 yen ($19.80) worth of discount points.
▼ Therein putting healthy, consenting adults into the unique position of getting paid to have sex in a way that involves neither prostitution nor the adult video industry.
Source: IT Media
Images: Google Play