Prince Hotels Inc, a Japanese hotel and resort group, expects to see its Thai guests rise 16.7% this year as Japan becomes a favoured destination for Thais.
The company predicts 70,000 Thai guests will stay at its hotels this year, up from 60,000 last year, which represented 5.8% of 1.14 million international guests, said Victor Osumi, corporate officer of Prince Hotels.
Thai guests are the sixth-largest group after those from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and the US.
"We hope the number of Thai guests at our hotels will continue to rise, reaching third place by 2020 when Tokyo hosts the Olympic Games," he said.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand has said Japan is the top outbound destination for Thai travellers, followed by Singapore, mainland China, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Japan's popularity has risen after the country waived visa fees for Thai visitors on July 1, 2013. Thai travellers have risen from 453,000 in 2013 to 796,000 last year. During the first five months of this year, the number reached 438,000, up 15.2% year-on-year.
Prince manages 41 hotels in cities such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Hakone, Sapporo and Furano. It has three main hotel labels: The Prince, Grand Prince Hotel and Prince Hotel.
The company also runs 28 golf courses, nine ski resorts and other businesses such as onsen hot-spring resorts, tennis courts, cinemas and aquariums.
Prince will debut a new hotel in Nagoya in the second half of 2017. Mr Osumi said Nagoya is Japan's third-largest metropolitan city and is popular as the midway point on the tourist route linking Tokyo and Osaka.
Sightseeing at the villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama Unesco World Heritage sites are also proving popular with Thai tourists, he said.
The new Prince Hotel will open on the 31st to 36th floors of the Global Gate West Tower, located in the redevelopment area to the south of Nagoya Station. It will feature 170 guest rooms along with restaurants, a club lounge, fitness centre, business centre and conference centre on the second to fourth floors.
The company will use Japanese hospitality to draw foreign tourists. Its global network covers cities such as Honolulu, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, Shanghai, Taipei and Bangkok.
Prince Hotels posted revenue of 58.4 billion baht last year, up from 55.5 billion in 2014.