The city of Beppu located in western Japan is famous for its hot springs.Published on : Monday, April 2, 2018
The city of Beppu located in western Japan is famous for its hot springs.
Several hotels and resorts have started competing to lure travellers to an area that is quite reputed for sights including ‘Hells of Beppu’ that represent a series of coloured and super-hot natural pools.
Since the number of Japanese domestic tourists visiting the resorts have been on the decline, the local as well as international hotel chains have started expanding to target the boom in foreign visitors.
The tourist numbers had dipped in the year 2016 after a quake in the nearby Kumamoto.
But then, they had recovered to a record in 2017. South Koreans have driven the 130% rise in foreigners residing in Beppu over the last five years. In the five years of economic revitalization efforts under Sinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, the boom in terms of inbound tourism has been quite a success.
On the other hand the other arenas like wage growth and inflation have had mixed results.
Foreign tourist numbers have risen so much that it has enabled to shrink the chronic deficits in the services account of Japan. InterContinental Hotel Group is among the businesses looking forward to leverage this boom in Beppu.
In fact, its joint venture with All Nippon Airwats would be opening a new 89-room luxury hotel next year (2019).
The chief executive officer of ING ANAN Hotels Group Japan, Hans Heijligers said that Beppu is one of the world’s most reputable hot springs resorts nut then it did not possess a sophisticated fame of international significance. He then also added that the wealthy Japanese market is attractive and inbound tourism is also booming.
Luxury domestic hotel chain Hoshino Resorts is also constructing a new hotel and Oedo Onsen had refurbished an older hotel and opened in July last year.
The present hotel boom is going to raise the number of rooms in the city to 5,030 in 2019 from the current 4,400 as per the Beppu City Ryokan and Hotel Association.
Tags: beppu, Hells of Beppu, japan, Kumamoto