Why are all the luxury hotels in Tokyo booked for Oct 2012? Four Seasons allows booking up to one year in advance yet their reservationists state that there is no availabitly. The same is true when I check the websites of all the other luxury brands in Tokyo. Any insight?

Most of them simply haven't opened up booking for October yet. It is rare, it seems, to be able to book a hotel in Japan as much as 6 month in advance.

Try looking at booking.com and agoda.Search from 5-1 * and see if you can't find any hotel to fit your needs.October is normally low time there for hotels ,so I doubt you would have many problems finding an opening.Perhaps some hotels offer bookings 6 months or more in advance for their busy seasons only.

Something is certainly going on that's causing space to be blocked, but I don't know what it is.

While smaller hotels in Japan often can't be booked more than 3 months out, you certainly can book luxury hotels and higher-end chains such as Four Seasons or Hyatts or Shangri-La a year (sometimes more) ahead. I just checked the Park Hyatt and Grand Hyatt, two of the top hotels in town, for a week's stay in mid-October and mid-November -- November is available, but October isn't.

October is usually convention and exhibitions month in Tokyo and I do see quite a few scheduled.....

Did a quick check on Kayak for random nights in Oct and found lots of hits for big hotels including the Peninsula, Okura but not the big hotels in the Roppongi area so something must be happening in that area. There are openings at the smaller hotels in that area like the BHotel, etc. though....

Aloha!

I'm hoping that the inventory simply has not yet been released. I cannot imagine that all the major hotels in Tokyo are sold out 8 months in advance. It's not as thought the Olympic Games are in town!

The IMF (International Monetary Fund) is holding their conference in Tokyo in mid October 2012...fortunatly I was able to secure a room at the Hotel Seiyo Ginza as most all the luxury hotels are booked.

Hello from Tokyo. Much better to call hotels directly in Tokyo and in Japan in general. You'll find better rates and usually no problem with English at the 5 star hotels. That's been my experience.