Hotel without English reservation

I found a business hotel with very good location and value for money. It's seems only available at Japanican (not listed at Booking or Rakuten) and TripAdvisor reviews are all in Japanese. The official website of the hotel also does not have any links for English (even for machine-translated).

I expect little to no English is spoken to this hotel, but what else should I consider before making the booking? Thank you.

I've made bookings through Japanese websites with Google Translate translating the pages (Chrome automatic function). Had no real issues at the hotels; staff didn't speak English but hotel check in/out is pretty standard everywhere. We made hand gestures (e.g. to indicate passport photocopying), and that was enough.

Japanican website is horrible from perspective of userinterface, BUT: all their bookings are fine and sometimes even the most cheap in comparison with others. so nothing wrong with booking over them.

I have made some reservations through hotel's own web site in Japanese. The process can be unfriendly to people not living in Japan. For example, all hotels seem to require a phone number where you can be reached just in case. But you don't have a Japanese phone number, so what do you do?

To make things worse, some hotels also require you to enter a Japanese zip code (mailing code). And their system checks to make sure the zip code matches your phone number area code. If not, they return an error message saying your zip codes does not match the area code. And you cannot proceed.

I asked one hotel how I should proceed with reservation, and they told me to enter hotel's phone number and zip code. So, that's how I have been making reservations.

Use a browser that supports auto translate (ditch IE if you're still one of the few people using it). japanican has an english section, and booking might take a bit longer, but is still doable. Watch out for half or full width characters if they want Japanese input.

Mei - I've always just used my Australian phone number, with the international code included. Never had an issue there, but I suppose the hotels you're talking about are a bit more strict!

Thank you for the opinion!

I was worried that hotels without English reservation is targeted only to Japanese customers and the service maybe different to the foreign customer.. not in negative way, but e.g. from service, etc. Nevertheless, I've made the booking :)