'The first step towards reviving this little hotel is not to make it Japan's happiest hotel for our guests. We want it to be Japan's happiest hotel for our employees.'
To you, Hotel Associa Nagoya Terminal might look like an ordinary hotel outside Nagoya Station in Japan. But it keeps an extraordinary secret: twenty years ago, it was on the brink of bankruptcy and about to fold. An enormous corporate high-rise had been built around the corner and was eating up the last of its dwindling custom.
That was when its owner, Akio Shibata, did something remarkable. Instead of allowing the business to collapse, or drastically cut costs and jobs to save it, he decided to prioritise employee happiness and see what happened. Little by little, he restored the spirits of his employees until they were among the happiest workers in Japan. His hotel was saved.
Told from the voices of the employees themselves - the receptionist, the waiter, as well as Shibata himself - THE LITTLE HOTEL OF MIRACLES is an uplifting and much-needed reminder that in business, as in life, the best source of success is happiness itself.