By NATSUMI NAKAI/ Staff Writer
October 10, 2023 at 16:03 JST
A public bathhouse in Kyoto Prefecture (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Public bathhouses are swiftly disappearing from Tokyo as the facilities grow older alongside their owners.
The number of public baths, known as “sento,” in the capital almost halved in the past 15 years, with 462 operating as of December 2022, according to the Tokyo metropolitan government.
The figure has dropped by more than 80 percent since 1968, when sento were much more popular and nearly 60 percent of households lacked baths.
There is now fewer than one public bathhouse per 10,000 people in every municipality in Tokyo, except Taito Ward.
The number of annual visitors to public bathhouses has fallen from 33.81 million in 2008 to 20.02 million in 2022.
In contrast, the average number of daily visitors to a bathhouse has risen by 16 percent to 144 over the same period, mainly because there are far fewer facilities.
Some sento featuring saunas are drawing more customers as the amenity has grown popular in recent years.
The operators of the 464 bathhouses that closed in the last 15 years listed their reasons for shutting down. The most common reason, cited by 84 operators, was aging facilities, while 69 sento owners said they were too old to carry on.
Thirty-nine owners said they couldn’t find a successor, while 20 said they faced financial struggles.
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