Luxury hot spring hotel to open on 13.5ha site in Hakone
Mitsui Fudosan and Mitsui Fudosan Resort Management are opening a luxury hot spring hotel on a 13.5 hectare site in Hakone in 2026. Hotel The Mitsui Hakone will follow the 2020 opening of Hotel The Mitsui Kyoto. This is Mitsui’s upper-end hotel brand. It will operate in a tie-up with Marriott’s The Luxury Collection, to appeal to inbound travelers.Read more
Japan’s first hotel-condominium* to be built in Hakone
On April 8, The Sankei Building Company, Tokyu Land Corporation, and Relo Vacations announced a hotel-condominium project for the Sengokuhara district in Hakone. This is the first hotel-condominium project in Japan to utilize the Home-Sharing Business Act (aka the Minpaku law) introduced in June 2018.
Overseas buyers seeking hot spring ryokans
Offshore buyers are on the hunt for hot spring resorts and traditional ryokans in Shizuoka’s Izu Peninsula, according to a recent article in Diamond Online. The article quotes an onsen and hotel broker that received over 200 inquiries in May alone from buyers looking to acquire accommodation facilities across the country, with 70% of those looking for luxury hot spring ryokans around Izu, Hakone, and Mt. Fuji.
Odakyu opens new hot spring hotel in Hakone
On August 11, Odakyu Electric Railway Co. opened their latest hotel in Hakone. Hakone Yutowa was originally built during the bubble as a corporate retreat but has been fully refurbished and converted into a hot spring hotel. It sits in a prime position just across the street from Gora Kadan - a hotel on the grounds of a former Imperial Villa.
Orix to open 70-room hot spring resort in Hakone
On August 7, Orix Hotels & Resorts announced that they are opening a 70-room hot spring resort near Gora Station, Hakone, in late 2020.
Foreign hotel guests in Hakone reach record high in 2018
In 2018, 21.26 million tourists visited the hot spring resort town of Hakone, down 1.2% from 2017. According to the town, the drop was attributed to a particularly harsh summer between July and September which saw people limiting day trips.
Hakone to restrict short-term accommodation in holiday home areas
Kanagawa Prefecture has approved a special rule that will restrict minpaku-style short-term and overnight accommodation by hosts in the mountain-top hot-spring town of Hakone.
Under the new rule, short-term rentals are banned in 18 districts designated as Category I Tourist Districts located within Category I Exclusively Low-Rise Residential Zones in Hakone Town. Up to 80% of the homes in these districts are holiday homes.
Properties in these zones cannot be rented out for short-term stays between March 1 ~ June 1, August 1 ~ September 1, and October 1 ~ December 1. It is important to note that these are the popular tourist seasons for the town. Renting outside of these periods requires the host to register their accommodation.