Prince Hotels takes naming rights on a public Okinawa beach, renaming it after itself
Okinawa Prince Hotel Ocean View Ginowan has won the naming rights to the adjacent, city-run Tropical Beach, rebranding it Prince Ginowan Tropical Beach just as Okinawa's peak summer season gets under way.
Ginowan City and the Okinawa Prince Hotel Ocean View Ginowan signed a naming-rights agreement for the city's Tropical Beach on 21 July, the hotel said in a release, after the property submitted the winning proposal to the city's public tender for a naming partner. A signing ceremony was held that day at Ginowan City Hall between mayor Atsushi Sakishin and the hotel's general manager, Suguru Sato. The beach's new name is Prince Ginowan Tropical Beach; the release did not disclose the term of the agreement or any fee.
The hotel said it kept “Tropical Beach” in the new name specifically to carry over the recognition the beach has built with residents and visitors, rather than replace it outright, while adding the Prince name to signal its own commitment to the area. It plans to market the hotel and beach as one tourism package, run community events tied to the beach, and build accommodation plans and activities around it.
Naming rights on a municipal amenity is an unusual move into Promotion for a hotel operator — closer to a sports-stadium sponsorship than a typical hospitality announcement — and it lands deliberately at the start of Okinawa's beach season, when Ginowan's shoreline draws the crowds a hotel next door wants walking past its lobby. Whether it pays off will show in the accommodation packages and events the hotel actually builds around the beach, not in the signing itself; a name change is cheap, a reason to book this hotel over any other Ginowan property is the harder part.