Incredible skiing, mountains of summer fun, 13 relaxing onsen and some of Japan’s most promising real estate opportunities make Nozawa Onsen a special resort town.
Steeped in ancient Japanese tradition and boasting centuries of history, to merely say that Nozawa Onsen is an ‘up-and-coming’ tourist destination would be selling it short!
Hot springs discovered as far back as the 8th century make Nozawa Onsen legendary for onsen travel, with thousands upon thousands of Japanese tourists visiting each year to unwind in the 13 public onsen and the many ryokan with private onsen in town.
Uniquely, almost all of the public onsen in town are open to visitors free of charge and kept in pristine condition by a cohort of local volunteers.
With onsen the original driver of tourism in Nozawa, development of the town as a winter ski and summer adventure destination has increased its popularity and set it up to become a lucrative destination for hospitality investors looking to get in on a resort town with boundless potential for growth.
Nozawa Onsen
Just three hours and 10,000 yen by train from central Tokyo, Nozawa Onsen served as a venue for the 1998 Winter Games and is now a popular destination for city-based skiers and snowboarders, as well as a welcome relief from the heat for those visiting in the summer months.
And increasingly, visitors from abroad are discovering this gem, returning each year to revel in upwards of 12 metres of annual winter snow and to immerse themselves in a distinctly Japanese resort town, complete with only-found-in-Japan style, quirky narrow streets and a ton of authentic culture.
Find out more about Nozawa Onsen here.
Buying and owning real estate in Nozawa Onsen
Most resort properties in Nozawa Onsen are very Japanese in architecture, design and service with futons on tatami mat flooring commonplace as the only bedding option in many accommodations. And finding real estate can be a real challenge unless you speak Japanese.
However, the upcoming Kawamotoya development is set to raise the standard to an exceptional new level. Boasting studio, one and two bedroom options, this new, full-service hotel next to the great Kumanotearai-no-yu Onsen adds the first truly luxurious, Western-style-with-a-Japanese-touch condo stay option to the Nozawa landscape.
Kawamotoya. View more images
Throw in an on-site cafe and rooftop-deck-come-BBQ-space and you can see why this particular development is attracting significant attention from not just potential holiday-makers, but from investors both within Japan and abroad too.
