Weaker yen turns developers creative

With Japan's tourist numbers and hotel prices on the rise thanks to a weaker yen, developers are getting creative with a new niche line in stylish but cheap accommodation in bunks, cabins and pods of all shapes and sizes.

Even a tiny double room in a hotel with limited service can set you back 30,000 yen ($240) a night in central Tokyo these days. But if you look a little more, you can bed down in comfort for a mere fraction of that.

Just 10 minutes' walk from Tokyo's famous Akihabara shopping district, an eight-story white building called Grids stands among office and apartment blocks. The hotel, a conversion of a 34-year-old office building that opened in April, offers rooms from 3,300 yen to about 5,000 yen a person.