Japan is working to have at least one luxury resort hotel in each of its 35 national parks by fiscal 2031 in a bid to make national parks more attractive to affluent inbound visitors, a core market in the country’s latest tourism plans.
The country’s national parks, which extend from the northernmost tip of Hokkaido to the southernmost islands of Okinawa, are already home to some high-end properties thanks to both public and private sector efforts, including The Ritz-Carlton, Nikko, which opened in Nikko National Park in 2020.
Still, the environment ministry wants to ensure every national park can accommodate affluent visitors, not only to increase the number of visitors but also their length of stay and level of engagement with nature.
“We aim to implement projects to increase the attractiveness of national parks using private-sector resources,” said environment minister Shintaro Ito of the plan, adding that the government’s goal is “world-class national parks based on the understanding of local communities and the idea of environmental conservation”.
As part of efforts, the environment ministry is running a pilot project to attract luxury hotels in four national parks including Towada-Hachimantai National Park, which stretches across Aomori, Akita and Iwate prefectures in northern Honshu, and Chubusangaku National Park, which covers Gifu, Nagano and Toyama prefectures in central Honshu.
National Parks have long been part of the government’s tourism growth plan, first a pillar in its Tourism Vision To Support Tomorrow’s Japan, launched in 2008, and now a core element of policies to increase the number of inbound visitors to 60 million annually by 2030.
