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Japan’s love hotels are attracting interest from more than just couples looking for a place to spend a few private hours and love horoscopes could be to blame.

Investors are also interested; this vast market seems to be proving more resilient to the recession than luxury business hotels.

There are about 25,000 love hotels in Japan which are visited an estimated 500 million times a year.

Clustered around train stations, they are doing a brisk business despite the worst recession in living memory.

A couple walk through the lobby of a love hotel, looking at a bank of screens
People can check into the love hotels via touch screens

Flamboyantly designed and exotically named - Hotel For You, Sunpalace, Asian P-Door - they offer rooms by the hour, euphemistically marketed as a short rest or a longer stay.

Contact with staff is kept to a minimum. This is a business that runs on discretion.

Some have underground car parks and entrances, while others provide screens to shield visitors’ number plates.

Plenty of customers are using love hotels to indulge in affairs or to meet prostitutes, although many are couples looking to escape the narrow confines of Japanese apartment living.

At many hotels the reception desk has been replaced by a touch screen of pictures of the rooms, brightly lit if available, dimmed out if already occupied.

Love hotels offer time alone in a crowded country where privacy is rare.