Long abandoned by customers and left unmaintained in solitude for decades, two rusting, crumbling sites are again attracting crowds.

A dilapidated amusement park and the ruins of a hotel are part of a trend among local areas to preserve such relics of the past as important heritages and use them for financial gain.

Resting serenely beside the Kejonuma marsh in Osaki, Miyagi Prefecture, the Kejonuma Leisure Land recreational park closed for financial reasons around 20 years ago.

A rusted Ferris wheel and carousel remain on the 110,000-square-meter site.

Masakuni Hirose, 53, a tour guide from Sendai-based travel agency Tabino Recipe Co., visited the facility in mid-June with 30 sightseers.

Many of them were from the Tokyo metropolitan area, and Hirose gave accounts he had heard from the facility’s owner and other relevant parties at certain points in the site.

“Godiego, a popular musical band, performed here, according to records,” Hirose told the tourists at the outdoor stage in the park.

While the guided tour took place in the morning, the participants were allowed to explore the remains by themselves in the afternoon.

A 21-year-old from Tokyo said the remnants hark back to bygone days.

“It is nice that rusted attractions have been left unchecked,” she said. “The deserted atmosphere allows me to stretch my imagination.”

A 19-year-old college sophomore who called himself a fan of abandoned buildings was seen filming the ruins.

“The tour enables us to view the park legally, and it might be torn down sooner than expected,” he said.

Another tourist, 43, from Sendai, said she was on her fifth visit to Kejonuma Leisure Land.

“The facility is still beautiful after falling into decay,” she said. “Although it is now enveloped in silence, the nostalgic ambience inspires me to imagine the site full of children’s voices.”

Kejonuma Leisure Land opened in 1979 and attracted 200,000 people annually in the peak period.

However, it shut down in 2001 after crowds dwindled in the aftermath of the end of Japan’s 1980s economic boom.

The park’s owner sought to resume operations, but the attractions were not used and corroded away.

The turning point for the facility came after a film set in the park was released in 2010. The park was also featured on a TV show.

The amusement facility gained the nickname of “a sacred land of ruins” among buffs of abandoned buildings.

With this in mind, Hirose negotiated with the owner to start giving tours of the park in January 2016. The one-day tours, which begin in Sendai, take place several times a year.

The tour costs up to 10,000 yen ($91) per person, and only online reservations are accepted.

It quickly becomes fully booked every time.

“We limit the participant number to preserve the facility’s atmosphere,” Hirose said. “Stopping people from illegally breaking in was also an objective. Honestly, I did not think the site would keep its popularity for such a long time.”

Information about the tour has gone viral, resulting in a flood of inquiries about “the next tour in the program,” according to Hirose.

Visitors themselves are responsible for any injury they may suffer if they fail to follow the guide’s instructions in the unmaintained facility.

“The equipment and facility could have been damaged by degradation over time and natural disasters,” Hirose said. “We are paying attention, such as setting no-entry zones and asking the participants to be cautious.”

DESIGNATED CULTURAL ASSET

The abandoned Maya Kanko Hotel in Kobe was once destined for demolition.

But thanks to a preservation campaign by local residents, the hotel building, dubbed the “Queen of Ruins,” was registered as a national tangible cultural property in June this year.

The accommodation facility, known as Mayakan for short, was built in 1930 halfway up Mount Mayasan. The building appeared to look down at Kobe.

After the hotel closed in 1993 and was left to decay, a demolition plan was hatched, but local residents rose up against the move.

J-heritage, a Kobe-based nonprofit organization that examines and promotes the attractions of deserted facilities nationwide, held talks with the hotel’s owner and developed a conservation project.

The plan was to solicit money through crowdfunding and add the Maya Kanko Hotel to the cultural asset list.

At the same time, a citizens group working to revive Mount Mayasan organized a tour partly to prevent vandalism there. The hotel tour has been held regularly since March 2017.

One remaining challenge concerns the interior of the building.

If the inside is left in its dilapidated state, it could be unsafe to enter. But too much preservation work could undermine its value as a remnant of the past.

The hotel’s seismic strength will be surveyed before related parties discuss how to preserve and repair it.

“We have seen many neatly mended facilities that have disappointed people,” said Yohei Maehata, 42, head of J-heritage. “We will forge ahead with the preservation work in the way that will give visitors to Mayakan the power to take a journey into the past.”