How to Write a Motivation Statement for a Hotel Job

In 2025, the job-hunting company Gakujo asked 338 companies that hire people in their twenties mid-career what they look at. When screening documents, the top two answers were the work you have done (76.2%) and your job type and industry (66.6%). At interview, the top two were communication skills (78.8%) and personality and fit with the company (65.0%).

The survey is not about hotels, and it covers hiring of people in their twenties, so don't read it as a rule. But notice what is missing from the top of both lists. Your motivation statement is not what these employers say they weigh most.

That changes how to write it. The statement will rarely win you the job. It is, however, the one box where you can look as if you didn't try. So the aim is not to be brilliant. The aim is to be specific.

The box is open on purpose

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare publishes a standard résumé template, created after the old Japanese Industrial Standards form was withdrawn in 2020. It has an open section headed 志望の動機、特技、好きな学科、アピールポイントなど. The same template made gender optional and left out commuting time and the number of dependants, so a hiring manager has less to go on from the form itself. That puts more weight on what you choose to write.

Three sentences

Most good statements have the same three parts. They can be one sentence each.

1. What made you want hotel work. A moment, a thing you saw, a change in what you wanted. One specific thing.
2. Why this hotel. One real fact about this hotel or this job that you can name.
3. What you will bring. Something you have already done that carries over.

Length varies, but a rough guide of our own is 200 to 400 characters in Japanese, or 80 to 150 words in English. That is enough to be specific and short enough to be read.

Five openings that tell the reader nothing

"I like helping people." Everyone does. It is not wrong, but it carries no information.

"I want to practise omotenashi." The same, with a nicer word.

A line copied from the hotel's own website. The hiring manager wrote it, or approved it, and will recognise it.

Only what you will learn. "I want to grow" is fair, but hotels also want to know what they get.

Pay, holidays and conditions. Ask about them later, at the right time. We cover that in The Hotel Interview.

And one more thing to avoid: sending the same statement to every hotel. If you can swap the hotel's name and nothing else changes, it isn't about this hotel.

Where to find the one real fact

You don't need inside information. Some places to look:

The job listing itself. What does it ask for, and what does that tell you about the work?

The hotel's size and shape. Sixty rooms and a breakfast restaurant is a different job from four hundred rooms and three restaurants.

Where it is, and what the area is known for.

Its guests. What kind of people stay there?

Your own visit, if you've been. A stay or a meal is worth more than anything you read.

An example

The two examples below are invented, written to show the difference. Don't copy them. Use your own story. (They are translated from Japanese, which is how most applicants will write them.)

Weak:

I like serving customers, and I want to use omotenashi at a hotel that welcomes guests from all over the world. I will work hard to grow.

Stronger:

I spent six years working at the register of a clothing shop in a station building. Most days I handled queues and complaints at the same time, and I came to like work where the guest is in front of me for more than a few minutes. That is why I am looking at hotels. I am applying to your hotel because it has sixty rooms and the staff cover both the front desk and breakfast service, which suits how I like to work. I can bring experience of queue handling, complaint handling and closing routines.

The second is not clever. It names a job, a reason, a fact about the hotel, and something the person can already do. That is all it needs.

If you are changing industries

Everything above applies, with one addition. Say what carries over. We go through that in Thinking About Moving Into Hotels?.

Using your profile

A KankoHR profile holds a résumé and a cover letter, and each application keeps a copy of what you sent at the time. A practical way to work: write one base statement, put it in your profile, and rewrite only the middle sentence, the one about this hotel, for each application.

Then send it. No sentence will guarantee an interview, and a statement that is good enough is better than one that never leaves your drafts.

Sources: Gakujo survey of 338 companies hiring in their twenties, published June 2025; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare standard résumé template.