These are big in Korea too, and the purpose isn't just infidelity as the article would have you believe. It is common to live with your family until marriage, and many Korean families outwardly hold traditional values of chastity until marriage. Families also tend to have a greater financial involvement (and therefore more influence over) in their childrens ability to rent a nice place because of jeonsei (very high security deposit - like a downpayment - in exchange for reduced rent), so it is in adult childrens best interest to keep up appearances with their parents. The average marriage age is 32 for women, 35 for men. So this means many, many years of adulthood dating where you cannot bring home a date to sleep with because you live with your parents. So love hotels are common in Korean nightlife districts and they are actually quite nice and cheap too. I stayed at some of them years ago and I recall they were around $75 per night, with free pirated DVD movies to borrow.