Experience the Height of Japanese Hospitality at Tokyo’s Safest and Most Luxurious Travel Destinations

Credit: David Jaskiewicz, Shiitake Creative

Providing luxury is about extravagance and going above and beyond while maintaining safety is quiet and restrained, but leave it to Tokyo - a megalopolis that uniquely fuses completely opposite concepts like tradition and innovation - to find creative ways to pamper visitors with high-end shopping, dining and accommodations while also guaranteeing their safety and continued health. Here’s how the ever-vibrant city does it.

Sunlight glints off the glass-smooth façade of a futuristic tower rising high into the sky, while a dolphin-nosed bullet train glides seamlessly out of a train station. Meanwhile, not far away, crowds flow past traditional sweet stalls before passing through the vermillion gates of a centuries-old Buddhist temple into swirls of incense smoke. 

Tokyo. 

The Japanese capital is a city that has long been celebrated for its seamless urban fusion new with old, innovation with tradition, the future with the past. The end result is an ever-evolving megalopolis with a dynamic cocktail of facets to explore, from world-class modern architecture and ancient cultural sights to cutting-edge shopping and once-in-a-lifetime dining. Despite its mind-boggling proportions, it’s also a city that works; it is safe, punctual, and surprisingly easy to get around—not to mention clean (it’s notable that the word kirei means both clean and beautiful in Japanese). 

A respect for cleanliness is entrenched in Tokyo life; bowing is favored above shaking hands, shoes are removed at home entrances, hands are washed at the threshold of shrines and, at the moment, it’s nigh-impossible to find anyone without a mask in public. Tokyo’s establishments take COVID rules very seriously, with a classically Japanese-style attention to detail. Restaurants are widely spreading out customers, often with fewer tables and clear table dividers, plus QR code menus and paper mask holders. 

Advance reservations also ensure that most art galleries and museums are crowd-free, while hand cleaner remains ubiquitous in almost every doorway, from five-star hotels to supermarkets. As visitors once again start flying into Tokyo’s well-connected airports from major cities around the world, what lies ahead for them is a once-in-a-lifetime experience magically fusing the old with the new—and which is as safe as it is memorable.

Luxury Hotels - The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon
The words “urban paradise” and “Buddhist temple” don’t often appear in the same sentence—unless you happen to be describing the 31st floor lobby of .The new hotel, Japan’s first EDITION (a second opens soon in Ginza), has not only shaken up Tokyo’s luxury scene, spurred on by its two creators, maverick New York hotelier Ian Schrager and architect Kengo Kuma—it’s also a textbook perfect example of how the capital’s top-tier establishments are combining style with safety. Tokyo has long been renowned for the star quality of its dazzlingly deluxe hotels—and it’s a world that has adjusted to the “new normal” of a global pandemic in typically smooth style. 

This should come as little surprise to anyone familiar with the city hotels’ legendary mastery of omotenashi—that near intuitive (and exquisitely Japanese) hospitality skill of knowing exactly what guests want, often before they know it themselves. As a result, hotels across the capital have installed a plethora of anti-COVID measures which are as rigorous, efficient and innovative as they are thoughtful and discreet. One stellar example is The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon, located in the upper levels of a skyscraper in sleek business hub Toranomon. Its heartbeat emanates from the lobby; an open-plan layout inspired by Buddhist temple courtyards—including a whole Garden Terrace on the 31st floor—is flooded with 500-plus plants, from sword ferns to alocasia. 

Among the floating foliage is a white marble bar, featuring intimate cocoons of window-side seating with diaphanous curtains and glowing decanters, as well as the scalloped velvet seating of The Blue Room (with cartoon-like close-ups of Tokyo Tower and global-meets-local cuisine).

The moment guests enter the hotel, anti-COVID measures kick into play: not confined to simple temperature screening and hand washing, a whole new contactless world of checking in unfolds. Guests can swap face-to-face interactions with an app, which enables contactless check in with a mobile key via their phone—with countless other activities also available at the press of a button (even in-room dining can be ordered on phones) plus free hand cleaner and masks in all rooms.

The 206 guestrooms offer a serene respite from a pandemic world, with minimalist expanses of light oak panels and simple gold leaf artworks, along with the unforgettable classic Tokyo skyscraper views (best savored in 15 popular guest rooms boasting the ultimate luxury: private terraces with plenty of fresh air).It’s a seamless marriage of luxury with safety, as embraced by many establishments across the capital—making a hotel stay in Tokyo feel perhaps even more memorable than ever before.

*Produced by Travel + Leisure

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