Tsubasa Yokote, representative director of Blueground Japan, in his Tokyo office.
Aren Elliott
In a wood-paneled boardroom with a commanding view of Tokyo’s Imperial Palace, Tsubasa Yokote is trying to explain the city’s approach to sustainable tourism. It’s not easy.
Yokote, representative director of Blueground Japan, says sustainability — best exemplified by the concept of mottainai, which emphasizes avoiding waste — has been part of Japanese society for centuries. Many of the tourism industry’s recent efforts to become more sustainable are a direct result of that cultural practice rather than a new movement spurred by climate change or politics.
You can see it in Blueground’s rental apartments. It’s in the recycling stations in the basements, which are standard in most Tokyo apartments. And it’s also in the efficiency features that allow you to regulate energy consumption in your home.
“All these features are beneficial for the environment,” he explains.
Blueground Japan, a collaboration with real estate developer Mitsubishi Estate, is a case study in mottainai. Each new apartment is designed with sustainability on several levels — not just in terms of saving energy but also of creating a sustainable business. The medium- and long-term housing market for furnished rentals is still developing, so when Yokote talks about sustainability, he is also talking about Blueground’s sustainability.
“Tokyo is upholding its high standard of sustainability, from its world-famous public transit system to dauntingly strict garbage sorting rules,” says Evelyn Gong, who teaches operations management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. She says the city is moving steadily towards its goal of achieving net zero emission by 2050, and its 2030 midway targets such as heightened renewable energy use and halved food waste.
The living room in a Blueground rental in Tokyo.
Blueground
How Tokyo’s tourism industry embraces mottainai
While Blueground Japan exemplifies sustainable urban living, Tokyo’s broader travel sector is weaving traditional mottainai values into innovative eco-practices. Here are a few examples of how hotels, restaurants, and cultural experiences are leading the charge:
Palace Hotel Tokyo’s circular economy
The hotel’s Eco-Palace initiative turns kitchen waste into fertilizer for local farms. The hotel then buys the resulting crops of rice and produce for incorporation into the staff canteen’s daily menu.
Kintsugi: The art of sustainable beauty
Many Tokyo luxury hotels, including the Palace, offer kintsugi workshops, where guests repair broken pottery with gold — a centuries-old practice that embodies mottainai. Couture designer Kevan Hall, inspired by a Tokyo workshop, noted, “It’s a poetic way to transform flaws into heritage.”
Carbon-neutral hotel stays
The Tokyo Station Hotel offsets 100 percent of guest stay emissions, while the Imperial Hotel Tokyo replaced plastic amenities with bamboo and wood. Both properties use CO₂-free electricity and hold top certificates in sustainable development.
Zero-waste dining
The Michelin-starred Daigo restaurant practices shojin-ryori, a Buddhist culinary tradition that minimizes waste. Chef Yusuke Nomura crafts plant-forward kaiseki menus using local ingredients, thereby reducing methane emissions.
Rebuilding communities
Walk Japan, a tour operator, partners with rural towns in places like earthquake-hit Noto Peninsula, where travelers help rebuild homes and revive abandoned rice paddies. Their tours funnel revenue into local economies, which are trying to counter population decline.
Eco-conscious lodging
Boutique projects like Nipponia Sawara repurpose historical warehouses into hotels using local materials. At Mt. Fuji’s Ecologic, guests join workshops and bike tours supporting nearby farms.
Sustainability as a lifestyle in Tokyo
One of the best ways of experiencing Tokyo’s sustainability is by living it. Blueground, which offers furnished apartment rentals in the city, is tapping into a new market of digital nomads and people who are relocating to Japan.
Yokote says Blueground’s apartments come with multilingual support to help customers make sense of Japan’s mottainai practices.
For many visitors, understanding sustainability in Tokyo means more than admiring eco-initiatives from afar — it means stepping into the rhythms of daily life. But Japan’s rental housing market often presents hurdles for non-Japanese residents, from stringent lease terms and language barriers to cultural nuances around waste management and energy use. Blueground’s furnished apartments aim to bridge this gap, says Yokote.
“That means access to housing designed with Japanese values — like minimalism and energy efficiency — while providing the tools to navigate systems that might otherwise feel inaccessible,” he says.
By embedding sustainability into the fabric of everyday living, Blueground’s apartments become gateways to Japan’s eco-conscious ethos. Guests learn to separate trash not as a performative act, but as a reflection of mottainai’s enduring influence. They interact with systems like energy-efficient appliances and water-saving fixtures, which are standard in Japanese homes but often unfamiliar to outsiders.
“When you live here, you start to see how sustainability isn’t a trend. It’s a mindset passed down through generations, and now it’s something visitors can truly inhabit,” says Yokote.
In Tokyo, looking to the past to create a sustainable future
Tokyo’s journey toward sustainability is not a race to reinvent itself, as it is in other tourism destinations. At its core lies mottainai, a philosophy that has long whispered the value of resourcefulness.
From Blueground Japan’s energy-efficient apartments, where global nomads navigate energy-saving systems and strict recycling protocols, to the Palace Hotel Tokyo’s closed-loop kitchens and the golden scars of kintsugi workshops, the city is trying to prove that sustainability thrives when it’s rooted in heritage.
These efforts are neither performative nor peripheral. They are pragmatic evolutions of tradition: Michelin-starred chefs reviving Buddhist culinary ethics to cut food waste, hotels offsetting emissions while preserving the elegance of a bygone era, and rural tours that transform travelers into stewards of revival. Even the challenges — deciphering trash-sorting rules or mastering apartment energy systems — underscore a deeper truth: Sustainability demands both systemic rigor and individual adaptation.
“We’re not just saving energy,” Yokote says. “We’re building a sustainable bridge.”
But Tokyo’s greatest lesson may be its quiet demonstration that the future of sustainability lies not in discarding the past, but maintaining and refining it — one repurposed warehouse, revived rice paddy, and thoughtfully sorted trash bag at a time. In a world grappling with climate urgency, that may be a lesson for other tourism destinations.
What dog hotels In celebration of National Dog Day, Ovolo Hotels has unleashed the ultimate V.I.Pooch package, available to guests and their fur babies from August 1 2025. They will get to enjoy a luxury suite and all of the lavish amenities, from room service to luxury dog products. From orthopedic beds to gourmet meals, Ovolo Hotels has collaborated with premium brands such as Dog Friendly Co., Frank Green and Petzyo to create a memorable in-room experience. To pet parents, that adds up to a stay that’s nothing short of a pampering, providing a place for your dog to live like a king while you live like a queen, or king, on your own luxury vacation. Here’s why you won’t want to miss the V.I.Pooch experience.
A Tail-Wagging Luxury Experience
Ovolo Hotels is taking the pet-friendly stay to a whole new level with its V.I.Pooch package offering, reserved for pampered pooches who already have everything. For a mere $120 per stay, furry guests will receive premium goods that will make their stay as luxurious as their humans’. Our V.I.Pooch product line offers a thoughtfully selected assortment of the best in class pet products from the most exceptional brands in the industry.
From the moment they walk in, every four-legged guest will find an exquisite in-room collection prepared to ensure that their stay is as comfortable as possible (and they look fabulous). Central Bark features plush orthopedic dog beds and fresh meals, all the way down to the details for the truly dog-friendly experience.
What’s Inside the V.I.Pooch Experience?
Dog Friendly Co Orthopaedic Memory Foam Bed with Tennis Balls: From August 14th, 2025, your pets will sleep in comfort, a memory foam support is a support for an ultimate nap. And every stay includes tennis balls for extra playtime.
Frank Green’s Designer Bowls: A Pet’s Meal In Style On the go pet water fountain You`ll love this bowl, and especially your dog will too.
The Nosh Project Fresh Meals and Treats:Your pooch can reel in a fresh gourmet meal and tasty treats to make their stay even more deluxe.
Petzyo Gourmet Dry Food: Give your dog a tasty and nutritious choice with some of Petzyo gourmet dry food so they still feel great.
Wellness Toppers and Poo Bags from PetzPark: Keep your dog healthy and happy with wellness toppers for your dog’s meals, and convenient poo bags for cleaner pick up.
$5 Donated to Sydney Dogs & Cats Home: With every V.I.Pooch booking, $5 goes to the Sydney Dogs & Cats Home, helping lost and abandoned pets.
Memories to Take Home
The V.I.Pooch experience extends beyond the hotel. At check-in, pets will be given their own ‘Petcation’ with a number of lines from the range for them to keep. This nice gesture means that the experience extends beyond your visit.
Ovolo Hotels provides a home away for home for even the furriest friends and all their needs will be taken care of so they can enjoy their time away as much as their devoted owners.
Celebrate International Dog Day in Style
To celebrate the launch Ovolo Woolloomooloo will be throwing an extraordinary V.I.Pooch party at Ovolo Woolloomooloo on International Dog Day. The festivities will be brought to life with activations from the partner brands, giveaways, as well as lots of tail-wagging moments for pets and their owners. It will be a day for you and your dog to have some fun in the sun and to revel in what makes the V.IPooch experience special.
Ovolo: Where Pets Are Part of the Family
At Ovolo Hotels, pets aren’t merely guests; they’re family. The V.I.Pooch was developed as part of the company’s dedication to providing an all-round luxury experience, not only for their human guests, but their four-legged friends too. With a strong emphasis on quality, design, and pet wellness, Ovolo Hotels offers an experience that takes pet-friendly travel to another level.
From the comfortable beds to the gourmet meals, it’ll be an experience your dog will never forget! Ovolo Hotels is showing the world that a luxury stay isn’t complete without pampering every family member — even the ones with paws.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside a hotel in Epping on Sunday for the fifth time to protest at the premises being used to house asylum seekers, as protests spread to other hotels over the weekend.
A large police presence containing officers from multiple forces restricted contact between anti- and pro-immigrant protesters, with Essex police saying restrictions were necessary after what it described as repeated serious disruption, violence and harm to the community since the first demonstration took place on 13 July.
Two men have been charged with public order offences after a protest of about 400 anti-immigration and 250 counter-protesters outside a hotel in Diss on Saturday, Norfolk constabulary said. There was a further protest outside a hotel in Canary Wharf, London, on Sunday, with the number of protesters appearing to be in the low hundreds.
The demonstration in Epping, Essex on Sunday – which saw about 300-500 anti-immigrant protesters gather behind metal barriers outside the Bell hotel – was the latest in a series of protests sparked after an asylum seeker was charged with sexual assault for allegedly attempting to kiss a 14-year-old girl. Hadush Kebatu, 41, from Ethiopia, has denied the offences and is in custody.
A large police presence restricted contact between anti- and pro-immigrant protesters, with metal barriers placed around the Bell hotel. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
Protesters wore T-shirts and held up signs with the slogan “Protect our kids”, while others waved England flags. Other flags seen included one for Reform UK, and a white flag with a red cross on a purple square, as seen in America at anti-abortion demonstrations.
Counter-protesters held banners including “Don’t let the far right divide us with their hatred and violence”, and “Care for refugees”. They chanted “Refugees are welcome here” and “Nazi scum off our streets”.
Police said three people were arrested during the peaceful protest, two from the anti-hotel protest group and the other from the counter-protest group. “I want to thank those who attended for the peaceful nature of both protests,” said Ch Supt Simon Anslow of Essex police. “I am pleased that today has passed off without incident and I am grateful to our colleagues from other forces for their support.”
In a letter sent to the Guardian, asylum-seekers said “harmful stereotypes” about refugees did not reflect the truth.
“There are some refugees who do not behave respectfully or who do not follow the rules of the host society. But those individuals do not represent all of us,” they said. “As with any group of people, there are both good and bad – and it is unfair to judge the majority by the actions of a few.”
The letter mentioned fleeing persecution and violence. “We refugees are not here to take advantage of the system. We are here to rebuild our lives, to work, and to contribute,” they wrote, adding: “This letter is not a plea for sympathy, but a call for understanding and fairness.”
Protesters outside the Bell Hotel, Epping. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
Outside the Bell hotel, one local woman, who did not want to be named, said local people had complained about an increase in antisocial incidents since it began housing asylum seekers but felt ignored and unfairly labelled as “far-right”.
“I’m not saying everyone in any of these hotels is up to no good. I’m not going to judge everyone, but there is no vetting,” she said. “We won’t stop until they start listening and shut this hotel down.”
Activists from far-right groups including Homeland, Patriotic Alternative and the neo-Nazi White Vanguard movement have been present at previous protests. On Sunday Kai Stephens, the Norfolk branch organiser for Homeland, held a sign which said: “Put local people first.”
Stephens said: “Unfortunately, there has to be a certain point where we turn around and say, the British people should be put first, the indigenous British people.”
Supporters of the far-right activist Tommy Robinson were also present. Robinson, 42, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, had said he would attend before changing his mind and saying it would not be helpful to protesters.
Wendell Daniel, a former Labour councillor who is now a film-maker for Robinson’s Urban Scoop video platform, asked one man if he understood why Robinson had not attended. He responded: “We’re with Tommy all the way.”
Other local protesters said that far-right agitators were not welcome. “It’s 100% unhelpful, because it just gives them a message which is not what we’re trying to achieve here,” said one man, who did not want to be named.
About 700 counter-protesters, organised by Stand Up to Racism, were believed to have gone to Epping. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
Stand Up to Racism, the group that organised the counter-protest, estimated about 700 people had gone to Epping. Lewis Nielsen, an officer at Stand Up to Racism, said Nigel Farage’s Reform UK had emboldened the far right.
“It’s a really dangerous situation at the moment because you haven’t just got the protest here, you’ve got other protests coming up around the country,” Nielsen said. “We stopped the riots last August with these kinds of mobilisations, and that’s why we’re pleased the one today has been successful.”
Joshua Bailey, who said he grew up in Epping, said increasing anti-immigration sentiment had made his non-white friends feel vulnerable and threatened. “It’s very important that we have a positive stance towards refugees, who are people fleeing genuine tragedy and disaster,” he said.
He added that he did not agree with chants that labelled protesters as fascists or Nazis. “There is room for nuance,” he said. “I’d like to be able to sit down in a pub with someone who had opposing views and be able to speak about it.”
In late June 2025, Virgin Hotels Chicago, the brand’s first location, was sold for approximately $77.4 million to an affiliate of Accelerated Assets, a Michigan‑based firm recognized for converting properties into timeshare resorts. Located at 203 N. Wabash Avenue, the Old Dearborn Bank Building, this 250‑room landmark tower originally opened in January 2015 after a $117 million renovation that preserved much of its historic 1928 features.
Accelerated Assets acquired the property from a joint venture of Virgin Hotels and Lionstone Development, who had bought the building in 2011 for about $14.8 million and financed a $50 million construction loan. The sale price averaged $309,600 per room, a sharp contrast to the $468,000 per room renovation cost.
The deal officially closed on June 30, 2025, and Virgin Hotels North America LLC will continue to manage the property under the Virgin brand, though the duration of the agreement remains undisclosed. Given Accelerated Assets’ history, including converting Chicago’s Hotel Blake into a timeshare resort, there’s speculation the property may shift toward a timeshare model in the future.
Downtown hotel revenues in Chicago remain below pre‑pandemic levels, though investors continue placing sizable bets on the city’s recovery. The building’s landmarked status, along with Class L property tax incentives, taxed at only 10 percent of assessed value, gradually phasing up through 2027, likely bolstered its appeal.
Constructed between 1926 and 1928 in ornate Neoclassical, Art Deco style by Rapp & Rapp, the structure was landmarked by the city in 2003. During its conversion into Virgin Hotels Chicago, original features such as the oak 1920s cigar bar, brass elevator doors and terra‑cotta detailing were preserved, while modern elements like a mobile app‑based guest services platform (“Lucy”) were introduced to enhance the guest experience.
With new ownership and potential repositioning ahead, the future of Virgin Hotels Chicago will hinge on how Accelerated Assets balances architectural heritage with evolving hospitality investment models and guest expectations.
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