Operators of hotels and inns wary of the government's plan to deregulate vacation rentals are saying in unison: Look at what happened in France.
Known as minpaku in Japanese, paid accommodations in private homes are considered key to alleviating the lodging shortage emerging from the tourism boom. But concerns over the trend prompted the industry last week to invite French business officials to Japan to share their experience with this relatively new type of accommodation.
France is the world's top tourism destination and drew 83.7 million visitors in 2014. This spurred a drastic increase in private rental accommodations.