Photo/Illutration Chen Mei Hui receives foreign guests at a hotel in the Hanamaki Onsen hot spring resort in Iwate Prefecture. (Hideyuki Miura)

HANAMAKI, Iwate Prefecture—Hotel employee Chen Mei Hui has helped to put this hot spring resort in northeastern Japan on the must-visit list for many tourists from her native Taiwan.

The resort has earned a favorable reputation through Taiwan’s tourism agencies and other channels partly because Chen has taught Taiwanese greetings and customs to Japanese hotel workers.

In the fiscal year ending on March 31, 71,000 foreigners are expected to have visited Hanamaki Onsen, including about 60,000 from Taiwan.

The overall figure is up from about 22,000 in 2016.

After Chen, now 59, was hired by hotel operator Hanamaki Onsen Co. in 2017, the number of overnight guests from Taiwan increased nearly threefold over eight years.

“Taiwanese are a big fan of Japanese music and literature, as well as snow and autumn leaves, which are rare on their homeland,” said Chen, who is married to a Japanese. “I want to spread the charms of Iwate Prefecture among visitors from Taiwan.”

According to Chen, Taiwanese favor hot dishes but shun cold dishes and ice water. Japanese-style bidet toilets are popular among them.

In 2021, Hanamaki Onsen bought about 5,000 pineapples weighing 6 tons from Taiwan after China, a mainstay market, suspended imports.

About 30 cooks sliced and froze the fruit, which was later served at buffet-style breakfasts and dinners.

The assistance project was widely reported in Taiwanese media, and locals said they wanted to stay at Hanamaki Onsen after the novel coronavirus pandemic was brought under control.

In some way, Hanamaki Onsen had returned a favor it received from Taiwan after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku region in March 2011.

At the time, Taiwanese tourism industry officials raised 1.5 million yen ($10,000) in donations for the hot spring resort.

“We are truly grateful for support from Taiwan during the disaster,” said Toshimi Sato, 64, executive managing director at Hanamaki Onsen Co.

Sato said Taiwanese are not only friendly toward Japan but also eager to visit Japan and learn about the country.

In the current fiscal year, Hanamaki Onsen has accepted 14 Taiwanese university students as interns. Chen is playing the role of their “mother” in Japan.

According to prefectural statistics, about 327,000 foreign tourists visited Iwate Prefecture in 2023, a more than threefold increase from about 100,000 in 2010.

About 200,000 of them, or 61.4 percent, came from Taiwan.

Hanamaki attracted about 57,000 tourists, or 17.3 percent of the 2023 total, the second-largest number after about 60,000 visitors to the prefectural capital of Morioka.

Related News