Chronicle No. 78 · History

1,300 Years, 52 Generations: The Oldest Hotel on Earth

A Japanese inn has been taking guests beside the same hot spring since 705 AD. In 2011 it took the world record from another Japanese inn, thirteen years younger.

In 705 AD, in a valley in what is now Hayakawa, Yamanashi Prefecture, a man named Fujiwara Mahito opened an inn beside a hot spring.

Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan has been taking guests ever since. The same family has run it through 52 generations, closing the gaps by adoption in the generations where there was no son to hand it to.

The water has not changed either. It rises hot enough to use straight from the ground, at volume, and the baths are filled with it unheated and undiluted — which in Japan is the mark that separates a real onsen from a hotel with a warm pool.

For years the title of the world's oldest hotel belonged to a neighbour. Hōshi Ryokan, at Awazu in Ishikawa, was founded in 718 and has been held by the Hōshi family for forty-six generations. It is one of the most cited businesses in the world on the subject of longevity.

In 2011, Guinness World Records reassigned the title to Keiunkan, thirteen years its senior.

Both are still open. Between them they have been making up beds for guests for thirteen hundred years, through every regime, war and recession Japan has had.

Lesson: Succession is the whole business. When the family ran out of heirs it adopted new ones rather than sell — which is why the sign has not changed in thirteen centuries.