TOMIOKA, Gunma -- Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture, will soon have its own "machi-yado" program that involves the whole town providing lodging and services.
Unlike large hotels with restaurants, baths and other facilities, this program combines simple lodging with the chance to enjoy eating and shopping in the local shopping district.
Programs like this have gained attention as a way of connecting tourists to the local community to vitalize local areas.
Tomioka Machi Kurumisha, a local company involved in community building, is organizing the program.
The firm is renovating an 80-year-old two-story nagaya row house located near the Tomioka Silk Mill. The building's exterior, old columns and steep staircase have been retained to give lodgers the feel of an authentic nagaya.
The building has two rooms for up to five guests, which will likely cost 20,000 yen per night. The company is hoping to be open for business this fiscal year.
However, the row house does not have a front desk like a regular hotel. These services will be handled by Hiroyuki Iriyama, 49, who works for the company and runs a clothing store in the shopping district.
For meals, Iriyama will ask guests what they want to eat, then introduce them to establishments that use local ingredients or well-known back-alley restaurants -- places only a local would know.
Guests will be able to bathe at Taisho-yu, a nearby public bath. With firewood stacked out the front and a woman sitting in an old-style "bandai" elevated seat to accept payment, the place has an air of nostalgia.
The point of the machi-yado program is to get tourists to enjoy "everyday" Tomioka.
The row house is only 150 meters from Iriyama's shop, but guests are not taken there directly. Instead, he takes a longer route, introducing them to proprietors of restaurants, a butcher shop and other businesses. This gives locals a chance to meet tourists who have come to see their town.
"It will create a good atmosphere where people will want to get involved in each other's businesses," Iriyama said.
Machi-yado programs have been successful elsewhere, such as in Obihiro, Hokkaido, and Himi, Toyama Prefecture.
"We're not a first-rate hotel and we don't use artificial intelligence. We just want people to experience the pleasure of natural comfort," he said.
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