New Niseko Tourism and Property Market Update from C9 Hotelworks

Japan’s upcoming tourism reopening on 11 October has created an onslaught of bookings for the winter season in Asia’s leading alpine destination – Niseko. As the favorable dollar yen exchange rate and the low-interest regime have spurred investors’ interest. C9 Hotelworks takes a closer look at this dynamic marketplace.

Despite the government’s closed border policies shutting down the overseas market for over two years, Niseko’s domestic tourism has been resilient. In Q12022, total visitors to Niseko were 288,670, growing by 14% compared to the same period in 2021.

Niseko’s winter tourism market and high-value foreign segment is connected to the real estate sector.  As a result, commercial land prices in 2022 decelerated. This trend was also seen in residential land prices, where growth was 12% in 2022, down from 40% in 2020, and 25% in 2021. Comparing Niseko to other Japanese alpine resort areas, Furano was 18% and Hakuba 17%.

Hanazono, Hirafu, and Niseko Village/ Higashiyama remain the top three destinations in the project pipeline. There remains a strong push for luxury projects outside of the mainstream Hirafu area driven by the lack of prime land and rising prices.

Two factors that may hamper wider destination growth are aging ski facilities and potential changes to the area development and more restrictive zoning by the government.

In C9 Hotelworks opinion the restart of Japan’s tourism sector and favorable dollar yen exchange rate will revitalize the transaction market in the short to medium term, as pent-up demand will induce a market tailwind.

To read and download C9 Hotelworks Niseko Tourism and Property Market review CLICK