On May 30, Japanese lingerie company Wacoal Holdings announced that they will be starting an accommodation business that will feature Kyoto’s traditional machiya residences.
From early 2018 onwards, the company plans to renovate old machiya into hotel-like guesthouses targeting tourists, with two or three machiya to open next year. Their goal is to manage 50 machiya over the next five years with a total annual revenue of over 1 billion Yen (approx. 9 million USD).