Heartwarming service with Thai hospitality and Japanese quality is the goal of Kokotel, which seeks to offer the cosiness of a traditional Japanese inn while promoting friends-and-family togetherness -- even on one of the busiest streets in Bangkok.
With a name derived from kokoru -- the Japanese word for heart -- Kokotel has embraced the startup spirit to break new ground in the hospitality business while offering unique experiences and value for money.
"For me, the hotel business is a form of entertainment business," CEO Rei Matsuda told Asia Focus. "We want our hotel to be a place for people to come and share different experiences or do things that they do not normally do when they are at home or at other hotels."
In his experience, when friends or family members stay in the same room in a ryokan, a Japanese traditional inn, they tend to talk about things they normally do not talk about when they are at home. People tend to loosen up when they are on holiday. Friendly banter during meals is often heard at a ryokan, and this is the atmosphere Kokotel is trying to create.
"When I was young I found out that my father and mother behaved differently when they were at a ryokan compared to when they were at home. I got to find out who they really were from their interaction with other people and the staff," Mr Matsuda said.
"At a ryokan in Japan, the relationship between guests and staff is almost like friendship and that is something that I want to replicate and bring to my hotels."
The first ryokan, Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, was created during the Keiun era (704 to 708 AD) and is considered the world's oldest hotel, according to Guinness World Records. With 35 rooms, it has been operated by 52 generations of the same family at the foot of the Akaishi Mountains in Honshu.
In a fast-changing world where people seem to spend most of their time staring into their smartphones, friends and family seem to spend less time together, says Mr Matsuda. He wants to create an environment conducive to communication and strengthening human connections.
But that doesn't mean that modernity and digital innovations are neglected. The hotel offers an in-house application called "4sher" that allows visitors to interact with the hotel and stay connected to each other, and hardware such as Koko Sheep mascots, a children's play room, and a slide in the lobby that is a big attention-getter.
"We want our hotel guests to talk with each other about the foods they have ordered and they can do so with the 4sher application that we provide, while the hardware we provide such as the slide in the lobby is how we differentiate ourselves from other hotels," said Mr Matsuda.
Kokotel is run by Singapore-based Newlegacy Hospitality, which has a declared ambition to be a "game changer" in the Southeast Asian hospitality industry. Its ultimate goal is to manage 1,000 hotels in South and Southeast Asia to create a "legacy for the 22nd century".
Currently the company has three properties in Thailand: the original 40-room site on Surawong Road in Bangkok, Patong in Phuket and Ao Nang in Krabi. Another franchised property, the Kokotel Krabi Oasis, is about to open at Ao Nang as well.
One of the big selling points of Kokotel is the four-person room concept to promote greater connection between friends and family members.
"A four-member family, two adults and two children, is quite normal and from my own experience, it is very difficult to find hotels that offer a four-person room," said Mr Matsuda.
The four-person room is 24 square metres with two single beds for adults and a bunk bed for which children find "very appealing". Bunk beds also help to save space to allow other services such as a bathroom with separate shower and toilet, a working desk separate from the bedroom, and a 40-inch LED TV on the wall.
The 24 sq m Koko Party-Twin & Bunk room with free WiFi starts from 2,075 baht a night, according to the Kokotel website as of Oct 30. A smaller 21 sq m room fitted with three adjoining single mattresses (ryokan-style) starts from 1,799 baht.
Citing his own experience before he got into the hotel business, Mr Matsuda says that finding a family-friendly hotel is hard, and finding one that is "cheap" but not "bad" is even harder.
"Most city hotels don't like families. They like quiet businesspeople who do not make too many requests," he said. "At the same time, most family rooms in Asia are suites which are quite expensive and do not match the demand of young couples with small children."
In the price range of 1,500 to 2,000 baht, he said, you would be lucky to find a clean room and decent service. At Kokotel, this price range comes with more than just a clean room and rudimentary services.
"Value for money is one of the key concepts for our brand in order to stay unique in this segment. We want our guests to feel that they are getting more than what they have paid for."
What budget hotels need, in Mr Matsuda's view, is a more systematic approach to the way they are run, with a focus on operational and financial efficiency without compromising service.
He points out that the top-tier segment in the hotel industry -- the big household names such as Hilton and Marriott -- has successfully adopted an institutionalised approach, while most three-star hotels are independent but inefficiently run by families.
"For restaurants it is completely the other way around, where the economy sector is more institutionalised such as McDonald's and Ootoya, while the top-tier restaurants are independently run by families, and I think that makes much more sense," he said.
"What I have seen in Japan is that independently run grocery stores have been turned into 7-Elevens and FamilyMarts and the same thing happened to Japan's hotel industry in 1990s and it happened in China in the 2000s, but it has yet to happen here in Southeast Asia."
Citing information from the booking app Agoda, Mr Matsuda said there are more than 2,000 hotels in Bangkok but only four Ibis and two Red Planet properties -- hotels that offer low rates and good-standard service -- so there is room to grow in this value-for-money, three-star segment.
"If I do not do it here (Bangkok) now, then somebody else will do it because it has already happened in Japan and China, so I did not want to miss the opportunity to institutionalise the industry as a whole and modernise the way that a small economy hotel is run," he said.
Kokotel draws its guests are from various cultures with Japanese guests making up only around 10% while the rest are mostly other Asians, while a lot of European customers check in during the high season in Bangkok.
Stepping into a Kokotel, one is struck by the novelty aspect. The lobby features a pair of sculpted sheep, which serve as mascots for the company because of the perceived connection to family values.
"The business side of the mascots is that I want people to take photos and upload them on social media so it is very crucial for the hotel to allow and give our visitors space to capture their memories," said Mr Matsuda.
"The positioning of the logo near the mascots and the slide in the lobby was part of this consideration. The first thing that most people do after they have checked in is to take a photo in front of the sheep or the slide."
The Philippines, where Mr Matsuda says investors are keen to sign on, is next on the expansion checklist for Kokotel, which aims to open one hotel every year from now until 2026. Indonesia is also on the list.
While every hotel should provide comfort and safety for guests, chief operating officer Wataru Nakatsuka sums up the broader Kokotel view of what hotel should be.
"We are friends and family serving friends and family so everyone, including guests and staff, are friends and family which is the most important thing for us," he said.
