Onsen Monkey

  One of my favorite way to spend a weekend is, going to Onsen, hot spring. I especially love Roten Buro, outside bath. And from now, autumn to winter are the best season to enjoy it.  Cold but pure atmosphere, hot but soft waters, a bit pungent but relaxing sulfur scent...awesome. As soaking yourself into the hot spring under the cold air, you can forget all of troubles (including tons of homework...) for a while. So I'd like to write about a Onsen to think about eMarketing.

The name of the Onsen is "Jigoku Dani Onsen", which means "The Valley of Hell." Maybe you don't know the name but you've heard of "Snow Monkey" or "Onsen Monkey." Jigoku Dani is known as hot spring where people can take a bath with monkeys.

 In this spot, there is only one old inn named "Koraku Kan." It is not so famous and not so popular among Japanese because it is very old, inconvenient. In winter, you have to walk more than 30 minutes in the snow to get there. In addition, monkeys are not so rare for Japanese. Monkey is Monkey. So, most of guests were the people who wanted to take Onsen bath for medical purposes.

But in this ten years, it is getting popular among foreign tourists because of this site. When I stayed there 5 years ago, all of guests were coming from foreign countries, like Australia, Canada, and France, except me. They all said that they knew about the inn on the web, and that it was very famous in the some tourists' site.

Actually, I was amazed. As for me, yes, Onsen was good, atmosphere was also good, monkeys, yes interesting. But, the charge, more than 10 thousand yen, was expensive compare to its old facilities and normal foods. And the staff could not understand foreign languages. So I asked them "Isn't it expensive for you?" So young girl, she looked 20's, answered "NO, NO, the monkeys are so cute! I really want to take a bath with them! How can I do?" ...She looked crazy for me. The old guy, he was 60's, said "Yes, it's not so inexpensive, but I think it's reasonable because we (he came there with his wife) are really enjoying this exotic mood."  

According to the owner of the inn, most of the guest were foreigners especially in the winter season. He said "Japanese guests are always complaining about our facilities and inconvenience, but foreign guests can enjoy them." I didn't think that all of foreign tourists think like this. But now I can understand; there are many potential guests who like this kind of taste if you look around all over the world, and Internet makes it much easier to hook those people.