What a Hotel Can Now Refuse: The 2023 Hotel Business Act Change

In The New Customer-Harassment Rules we covered the duty that employers have had since 1 October 2026 to protect staff. There is a second law that works from the other side, and it has applied since December 2023. It changes when a hotel may refuse to take a guest. If you work in a hotel, or plan to, it is worth understanding what it allows, and what it does not.

The basic rule, and the change

The Hotel Business Act starts from a principle: a hotel operator may not refuse a guest except in specific cases. The amendment, which took effect on 13 December 2023, added a new case. An operator may now refuse a guest who repeatedly makes demands that place an excessive burden on the hotel and are likely to seriously interfere with serving other guests.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's leaflet for operators describes the new ground for refusal in these terms. It applies when a guest repeats, towards the staff who serve guests, behaviour such as:

1. Demanding an unfair discount, a pick-up that isn't in the contract, or other excessive service.
2. Making unreasonable demands, face to face or by phone, over a long time.
3. Making a demand whose manner or means is out of proportion to how reasonable the demand is, for example physical attacks (violence, injury), mental attacks (threats, slander, defamation, insults, abusive language) or demanding that someone kneel in apology.

The examples the ministry lists elsewhere include unreasonable demands for discounts or compensation, for room upgrades, for late check-out or early check-in, and for transport that is not in the contract.

What it does not cover

The ministry is explicit that some things are not new grounds for refusal.

• A guest with a disability asking for barriers to be removed. Examples given include asking for written communication at the front desk, or asking for help moving from a wheelchair to the bed.
• A guest with a disability who has been treated unfairly because of it, and asks for an apology.
• A guest whose behaviour comes from the characteristics of a disability, such as not being able to adjust their voice to the situation, where that can be learned by asking the guest or the person with them.
• A guest who has suffered loss through the hotel's own fault or negligence and asks it to put things right, unless the manner of asking is unreasonable.

The ministry adds that hotels are expected to respond with an understanding of disability, and that checking a guest's circumstances to the extent needed to provide reasonable accommodation, with respect for privacy, is not unfair discrimination.

It is the hotel's decision, with conditions

The law gives the hotel operator a power, not an order. It does not tell staff to refuse anyone. In practice the decision is for the hotel's management, and the ministry's guidance emphasises that it should be based on objective facts and explained properly if asked.

When a hotel does refuse a guest on this ground, it must make a written record. The record shows the date and time of the refusal, the names of the person refused and of the staff member responsible for dealing with them, the reason and the sequence of events. The hotel must keep it for three years.

For the steps before refusal, the ministry's guidance, as reported in prefectural summaries, is that the hotel should first say that it cannot meet the demand but will still accommodate the guest, and consider refusal only if the demands are then repeated. We have not read the guideline itself on this point, so treat that as a summary and check the ministry's page.

What this means for staff

You are not expected to refuse a guest on your own. The sensible course is the one in The New Customer-Harassment Rules: stay safe, tell your supervisor promptly, write down what happened, and use the hotel's consultation route. The hotel's decision about whether to refuse a guest belongs to the person in charge.

What the amendment gives you is clarity. A hotel that has thought about it will have a policy, someone who decides, and a way to record. If it has none of those, it has not done the work the two laws together ask for.

What it does not do

It doesn't make complaints disappear, and it doesn't allow a hotel to turn away a guest for a firm but reasonable complaint. As the ministry says, a guest who has been harmed by the hotel's own fault and asks for a proper response is not within the new ground. The point of the law is to protect staff and other guests from repeated, excessive demands and abuse, not to remove accountability.

Other things the amendment changed

The same law deals with infectious diseases. During periods when a "specified infectious disease" is occurring in Japan, a hotel may ask guests for certain cooperation. Covid-19, now a category five disease, is not covered. It also tightened the rules against discrimination. We mention these because they are part of the same amendment, but the main thing for hotel staff is the section above.

Two laws, two directions

It helps to keep the two laws apart.

A hotel may need both: a policy for protecting staff, and a way of deciding when to refuse a guest.

How it might look in practice

This is an invented, generic sequence, to show how the pieces fit together. It is not a legal procedure, and a real hotel's process may differ.

1. A guest asks for a large discount that the hotel can't give, and keeps asking, over the phone and at the desk, over several days.
2. The staff member on duty stays polite, doesn't promise anything, and tells the manager.
3. The manager speaks to the guest, explains that the hotel can't meet the demand, and that the guest's stay is still welcome.
4. The demands continue, and the manner becomes abusive.
5. The person in charge decides whether the conditions for refusal are met. If they refuse, they write the record: date and time, the names of the guest and of the staff member responsible, the reason and what happened.
6. The hotel keeps the record for three years, and checks in with the staff who dealt with the guest, as the customer-harassment rules require.

Notice who does what. The front-line staff member stays safe, stays polite and passes it up. The decision belongs to management.

If you are asked to refuse a guest on the spot

You can say you will bring the person in charge. For example, "I'm sorry, I'll ask my manager to speak with you." That is not an evasion. It is the right step, and it is the sentence we recommend in Hotel English for things you can't decide yourself: say what you can't do, then what you can.

What a good hotel policy covers

This is our general view of what to look for.

• Who decides on a refusal, and who covers for them out of hours.
• What staff say to the guest in the meantime.
• How the record is made, and where it is kept.
• How staff who dealt with the guest are supported afterwards.
• How requests from guests with disabilities are handled, so that they are not mistaken for something else.

If a hotel can describe most of these, it has thought it through.

Questions to ask a hotel

1. "Who decides whether a guest may be refused, and who deals with the guest in the meantime?"
2. "How do you record it, and who can I tell if I'm worried about a guest's behaviour?"
3. "Has the hotel trained new staff on this?"

These fit with the three questions in The New Customer-Harassment Rules.

Where to start

Read the hotel's policy if you can, and ask the three questions at interview. If you are already working in a hotel, ask your manager who decides and what the process is. On KankoHR, create a profile that describes your experience, so that employers who match can invite you.

Sources: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare leaflet and pages on the amended Hotel Business Act (effective 13 December 2023); prefectural summaries of the ministry's guidance on steps before refusal (marked as such in the text).