I'm familiar with Japan and find it quite believable.
You may be familiar with the "akiya" phenomenon, where empty houses in the Japanese countryside are sold for a song. The same applies not just to residential homes, but to other buildings as well, and their price tag is very low for the same reason: the property has serious issues and/or has been vacant for years, and will require far more than the initial investment to make habitable.
Here's a fascinating blog post by someone who went poking around the ruins of one hot spring town (Kinugawa) that went through a particularly dramatic boom and bust cycle: https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/983/
This particular hotel at least appears to have been open until fairly recently, but Google reviews describe the "Showa-era" furnishings (read: 1980s at best), and it's on the fairly grim slate grey Kujukurihama beach 3.5 hours from Tokyo by train: https://maps.app.goo.gl/G53KWyCsmeUy8JyR9
What makes you think these businesses are thriving? It's scams upon scams: the Japanese mastermind buys failing businesses on the cheap, pumps up the price and sells them to Chinese people, who then proceed to use them to essentially scam residence visas from the Japanese government.
Not bankrupt doesn’t mean the company is actually worth anything. A large number of tiny business are still in operation because the owner is willing to work at below market rates to keep it operating.
Re the spikejapan blog: The author’s About page includes this line which describes my experience of the article very accurately, having bailed after a couple of minutes:
“It's a species of anti-blog, as there is no way that you'll get through a post if you suffer from any kind of attention-deficit disorder; even then, you may need a strong cup of coffee and an hour to kill.”
I respect the attempt at belletristic writing, even if it falls a bit short. If they had an editor to rein in some of the thesaurus usage it’d be fine. Not everyone appreciates the style, though.
You may be familiar with the "akiya" phenomenon, where empty houses in the Japanese countryside are sold for a song. The same applies not just to residential homes, but to other buildings as well, and their price tag is very low for the same reason: the property has serious issues and/or has been vacant for years, and will require far more than the initial investment to make habitable.
Here's a fascinating blog post by someone who went poking around the ruins of one hot spring town (Kinugawa) that went through a particularly dramatic boom and bust cycle: https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/983/
This particular hotel at least appears to have been open until fairly recently, but Google reviews describe the "Showa-era" furnishings (read: 1980s at best), and it's on the fairly grim slate grey Kujukurihama beach 3.5 hours from Tokyo by train: https://maps.app.goo.gl/G53KWyCsmeUy8JyR9