Efforts to increase overnight stays in Nara are coming to fruition with the opening of government-subsidised hotels, but it remains unclear whether more beds will encourage visitors to spend the night.
Nara has long-been considered a day trip destination, with inbound tourists typically visiting Nara Park to see Todaji Temple and the free-roaming deer before returning to Kyoto or Osaka in the evening. As a result, only 2.64 million visitors stayed overnight in 2023, the fourth-lowest prefecture for overnight stays, according to the Japan Tourism Agency.
Attributing this trend to insufficient accommodation, the prefectural government set a goal of increasing the number of guest rooms by 1.2 times (to 12,000) by the end of March 2025, and introduced a 200 million yen (US$1.4 million) subsidy for each new hotel to open in the area.
French hotel brand Novotel, which opened in Nara in September, and Japanese business hotel brand Toyoko Inn, which opened last year in Tenri, are among the businesses receiving the subsidy.
InsideJapan Tours representatives recently spent two nights in Nara at some of the new accommodation, and the company is confident that their customers will be interested in Nara as an overnight destination.
“Walking around (Nara) park early in the morning or in the evening is a magical experience,” said Tyler Palma, global head of operations, adding that InsideJapan aims for staying overnight rather than day tripping as “an important step in positively impacting the local community”.
More accommodation alone, though, will not boost overnight stays, according to local guide Yuri Watanabe, who noted: “When my customers learn about Nara from me while I’m guiding, they often say they wished they hadn’t planned to leave so soon. They simply don’t know what Nara has to offer before getting here.”
