Tokyo 2020 Olympics: How to visit Japanese capital on a budget

Don’t let the utilitarian name put you off. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government HQ is a big tourist attraction – especially for the next 40 weeks.

Shake off the crowds in the world’s busiest railway station, Shinjuku. Wander west past karaoke bars and pachinko halls, and walk right into the local authority headquarters.

Most travellers come here for the free ride to the 45th floor, where the city’s government thoughtfully provides a high-altitude observatory. Celebrating this century of mega-cities, countless skyscrapers march into the urban haze.

An additional lure right now is a travel-weary banner. The official Olympic Flag, which is passed from one games venue to the next, has pride of place on the mezzanine – awaiting the opening ceremony for the 32nd Olympiad of the modern era on 24 July 2020.

As usual ahead of the four-yearly festival of sport, prices for visitors are soaring. Flying from Heathrow to Tokyo on 22 July, returning after the closing ceremony on 9 August, the cheapest nonstop return ticket is £1,600 – twice the usual going rate.

The Park Hyatt Hotel, as featured in the film Lost in Translation, is apparently completely sold out during the games, and the same applies for the chain’s other properties in Tokyo. Instead, the website invites you to pay £610 per night for a double room at a Hyatt 30 miles from the capital. A couple planning to travelling together could right now pay £15,000 for a far from perfect solution.

Yet having tracked air fares and hotel rates for the previous five Olympics, starting in Sydney in 2000, I predict that Tokyo 2020 will follow a standard pattern.

Initially airlines and hoteliers think of a reasonable price and quadruple it. The Olympics, they believe, is a once-in-a-lifetime, get-rich-quick scheme.

Never mind the thin pickings from the current Rugby World Cup in Japan. Much of the world regards the game played by men with odd-shaped balls as a minority sport popular only in exotic, far-off locations such as Fiji, Uruguay and Wales. For the sporting world’s flagship festival, surely they will coin it?

Official national delegations, media and tour operators catering for ardent fans of the Olympics will pay some astronomical rates. But as the opening ceremony approaches, it will become painfully apparent that supply is outstripping demand.

“Normal” tourists and business visitors will be deterred by tales of high prices, and possibly the risk of disruption that the global gathering brings to its host city. Some may even be deterred by security concerns.

So anyone who waits patiently until a few weeks or days before the games can be confident of finding a plane ticket and hotel room for less than the usual price in a non-Olympic summer.

Tickets are trickier. If you are set on watching the men’s 100m final in the Olympic Stadium on 2 August, or the main medal days in the pool, you have no hope on a budget. Even fringe disciplines, such as “artistic swimming” and dressage, may sell out.

Yet finding a good spot to see the best marathon runners in the world speed past will be easy.

However deep or shallow your interest in sport, next summer will be an excellent time to be in Tokyo. Key tourist attractions will be pleasingly accessible, and sought-after restaurant tables easy to book.

The only downside I predict: the surges of humanity engaged in synchronised crossing at the road junction outside Shibuya station when the pedestrian lights change to green may dwindle, robbing the onlooker of a wondrous spectacle. But so will the queue for the free 45th-floor observatory.

Tokyo is an addictive city full of joyful discoveries.