The Ohruri Group (おおるりグループ; Ohruri Co., Ltd., based in Nikko, Tochigi), which built its business on large, low-priced onsen ryokan with free shuttle buses across northern Kanto and the Izu Peninsula, now states on the top page of its official website that “Kinugawa Onsen Hotel New Ohruri closed on August 31, 2026.” The same notice adds that “Shiobara Onsen Ohruri, operated by the same group, remains open for business as usual.” On September 1, 2021 the group closed 10 of its 12 properties, and since then it has sold, outsourced or reopened them one by one. With this latest closure, the only property the group still runs itself is Shiobara Onsen Hotel Ohruri. In this article we check the current name, operator and reopening year of each of the 10 properties closed in 2021 against each operator’s official announcements, and use MetroEngines Research data to show where the post-turnaround price levels sit against the estimated settled ADR of each local area.

Property matches are based on each operator’s official announcements (opening and rebranding press releases, official websites) as primary sources. Where an official announcement does not mention the former name, we matched the property by location (address and coordinates) and room count. The matching method for each property is shown in the “How confirmed” column of the table.

The Closure of Kinugawa Onsen Hotel New Ohruri — Five Years of Suspension, Reopening and Closure

First, the facts. Kinugawa Onsen Hotel New Ohruri (鬼怒川温泉ホテルニューおおるり; 37 Kinugawa Onsen Taki, Nikko, Tochigi) suspended operations on September 1, 2021, citing the spread of COVID-19, reopened on June 1, 2022, and closed on August 31, 2026. The closure was announced only on the top page of the official website, and no reason was given. The property’s own page, however, still says “reopened on June 1, 2022” and still shows a December 2025 notice for New Year holiday plans, and the hotel remained listed on booking sites for some time after August 2026. This gap between closure notices and sales screens is the same pattern we covered in our earlier report “Closed Ryokan Still Bookable on Agoda: 12 Japan Closures Checked“. A property’s operating status needs to be confirmed against official announcements.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from each company’s official announcements

Laid out in time order, four properties in Tochigi and Shizuoka moved to MyStays Hotel Management (renamed Iconia Hospitality on July 1, 2025) within about six months of the 2021 closures, by spring 2022. BBH Hotel Group followed at the end of 2022, and the former Hotel Ohruri in Kusatsu joined as a Kamenoi Hotel in 2023. In other words, more than half of the 10 closed properties had switched to a new brand within just over two years, and New Ohruri in Kinugawa was the only one the group reopened itself. The event at the end of August 2026 is that this sole reopened property closed four years later.

Ohruri Properties Still Operating — Shiobara Continues; Kusatsu New Momiji Was Transferred at the End of July 2025

The hotel list on the official website currently shows three properties: Kinugawa Onsen Hotel New Ohruri (with its closure notice), Shiobara Onsen Hotel Ohruri and Kusatsu Onsen Hotel New Momiji (草津温泉ホテルニュー紅葉). For Kusatsu Onsen Hotel New Momiji, however, a notice dated August 1, 2025 states that “the business has been transferred as of July 31, 2025,” and the property was dropped from the group’s point card program from that date. The buyer’s name has not been disclosed, so we do not name it here. The only lodging property the Ohruri Group still operates itself is therefore Shiobara Onsen Hotel Ohruri (塩原温泉ホテルおおるり; 815-3 Shiobara, Nasushiobara, Tochigi; 120 rooms by our count).

Shiobara Onsen Hotel Ohruri has kept the same low-price, shuttle-included, group-oriented sales style it had before the closures, with a 25th-anniversary notice in September 2024, a group plan offering “free pick-up within the prefecture for groups of 10 or more” in March 2025, and the return of its monthly dance party in December 2025. MetroEngines Research estimates the property’s settled ADR in October 2026 at about ¥5,400 (2 guests per room, tax-excluded equivalent), against a listed price (all-plan average, tax included) of about ¥21,900. The estimated settled ADR comes out low relative to the listed price because the estimation method applies a property-type factor to the lowest plan, which reflects the price structure of a property that mainly sells group plans with two meals.

Where Did the 10 Properties Closed in 2021 Go? — Current Names, Operators and Reopening Years

Using our list of closed properties published on July 22, 2021 as the master list, we checked the current status of all 10 properties one by one. Six moved to Iconia Hospitality (formerly MyStays Hotel Management), one to BBH Hotel Group, and one is listed under the Tabist brand. One was reopened by the group and later closed, and for one no successor property has been announced.

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from official announcements by the Ohruri Group, Iconia Hospitality (formerly MyStays Hotel Management) and BBH Hotel Group, and MetroEngines Research (locations and room counts). Room counts are as announced by each company (Tabist Shimizu no Yado is our own count)

Locations of the 10 properties closed in 2021 and the 2 properties that stayed open or were transferred (circle color = current operator group). Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team

Two points deserve attention in this matching process. First, Iconia Hospitality’s press releases often say only “new management contract / start of operations” and do not name the previous operator. The only official documents that state the former name are the rebrand announcement of September 1, 2023 (Nikko Yunishigawa Heike Honjin becoming Kamenoi Hotel Nikko Yunishigawa) and the Nasu Takao Onsen Lodge opening announcement of August 26, 2025 (which notes that Shiobara Onsen Yashio-so became Hottarakashi no Yado Yufuri Nasushiobara on February 1, 2025). All other properties were matched by address, coordinates and room count; for example, Nasu Takao Onsen had 70 rooms before the closure and 70 rooms at its 2025 opening, and Atagawa had 75 rooms before the closure and 75 at its 2022 opening. Second, a MyStays release dated April 5, 2022 lists “Takao Onsen Nasu Sanso (opening planned from June)” and “one property in preparation in the Kusatsu Onsen area,” so plans to bring the Nasu Takao and Kusatsu properties under the company’s management had already been published in 2022. The Kusatsu property later opened as Kamenoi Hotel Kusatsu Yubatake in November 2023.

Turnaround Patterns for Large Low-Price Ryokan, Read Through the Buyers

Looking at where the 10 properties went by operator, the main taker was Iconia Hospitality. The company took over 30 former Kanpo no Yado properties in April 2022 and launched the Kamenoi Hotel brand in July of that year, and it took on six former Ohruri properties in the same period. We covered the turnaround of the 39 Kanpo no Yado properties in “What Is Kamenoi Hotel? 39 Ex-Kanpo no Yado Properties, 2,952 Rooms” and “Kanpo no Yado to Kamenoi Hotel: 39 Hotels, +27% ADR After Renovation“. The former Ohruri properties were handled a little differently: within the company they were split between two brands.

One is Kamenoi Hotel, which covers three properties: Nikko Yunishigawa (54 rooms), Okunikko Yumoto (78 rooms) and Kusatsu Yubatake (80 rooms). Yunishigawa switched to an all-inclusive format in December 2024, and Kusatsu Yubatake was announced to have renovated its lobby, restaurant, some guest rooms and shop before opening. The other is Hottarakashi no Yado Yufuri, launched in 2025, which covers two properties: Shiobara (the former Yashio-so, 80 rooms) and Nasu Takao Onsen Lodge (70 rooms). The company positions it as an onsen inn where guests are free to choose their meals and how they spend their time, and it can be seen as a brand that carries on the former Yashio-so’s sales style of mainly room-only stays with free-flowing hot spring baths. Atagawa Ocean Resort (75 rooms) belongs to neither brand; it carries its own name and opened in 2022 as a resort with ocean-front rooms throughout.

Outside Iconia, BBH Hotel Group (Breezbay Hotel) reopened the former Shiobara Onsen Hotel as Nasushiobara Ichimantei in December 2022, and Ryoso Ohruri-so in Kinugawa (18 rooms) is listed on booking sites as Tabist’s Nikko Kinugawa Onsen Shimizu no Yado. In other words, other takers also played a role besides Kamenoi Hotel: a mid-price, lodging-focused chain and a franchise-style brand for small inns. Ranking the buyers by size is not the aim of this article. What matters for operators and investors holding similar assets is that a uniform group of low-price, large, group-oriented properties split into different paths at the turnaround stage: “conversion to mid-to-high price,” “staying in the low-price segment” and “branding of a small inn.”

Post-Turnaround Prices vs Area Estimated Settled ADR — Kamenoi at 1.3–1.7x, Yufuri at 0.4x

The difference in paths shows up clearly in prices. The chart and table below set MetroEngines Research’s October 2026 estimated settled ADR (2 guests per room, tax-excluded equivalent) for each property against the median of the municipality where it is located. The area medians are ¥19,600 for Nikko City (120 properties), ¥17,700 for Kusatsu Town (93 properties), ¥12,600 for Nasushiobara City (70 properties), ¥19,300 for Nasu Town (53 properties) and ¥18,500 for Higashiizu Town (48 properties). The four-tier structure of municipal rates within Tochigi Prefecture, from about ¥20,000 in Nasu down to ¥7,300 in Utsunomiya, is set out in Tochigi Hotel ADR: 3.6x City Gap, Nasu ¥20,192 vs Utsunomiya ¥7,349.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (October 2026, estimated settled ADR, 2 guests per room, tax-excluded equivalent; area median = 100)

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (October 2026, estimated settled ADR, 2 guests per room, tax-excluded equivalent, finalized month). Tabist Nikko Kinugawa Onsen Shimizu no Yado was last observed in March 2026, when its estimated settled ADR was ¥14,000 (0.86x the Nikko City median of ¥16,300)

All three Kamenoi Hotels sit above their area medians: Kusatsu Yubatake at 1.74x, Nikko Yunishigawa at 1.41x and Okunikko Yumoto at 1.34x. In the Ohruri era before the closures, these were low-price properties built around “¥10,000 flat” group plans with two meals. The same buildings are now sold above the middle of their areas after renovation and rebranding, which can be read as a case where a large low-price property successfully converted to mid-to-high pricing. Atagawa Ocean Resort, at 1.11x, is close to the Higashiizu Town median.

The two Yufuri properties and Ichimantei, on the other hand, sit below the median. Yufuri Nasushiobara is at 0.45x and Nasu Takao Onsen Lodge at 0.39x, roughly the same level as the still-operating Shiobara Onsen Hotel Ohruri (0.43x). This does not mean their prices failed to rise; it is better seen as the result of a design that carries on the former Yashio-so’s sales style of room-only stays and free-flowing hot spring baths and makes the low-price segment its main battleground. Within the same onsen town of Shiobara, the roles are split: Iconia runs a low-price brand, the Ohruri Group runs a traditional low-price property for groups, and BBH covers the mid-to-low segment at 0.76x.

Note that the estimated settled ADR is an estimate obtained by applying a property-type factor to the lowest plan, and for ryokan that sell many plans with two meals, the gap to the listed price (all-plan average, tax included) widens. In October 2026 the listed price was about ¥13,500 for Yufuri Nasushiobara, about ¥21,900 for Shiobara Onsen Hotel Ohruri and about ¥58,300 for Kamenoi Hotel Kusatsu Yubatake, so the ranking does not change on a listed-price basis either.

Nikko City’s Estimated Settled ADR Down 8% YoY — Impact on the 3,574-Room Kinugawa Market

In Nikko City, where the closed Kinugawa Onsen Hotel New Ohruri is located, the estimated settled ADR (120–122 properties) was ¥19,100 in August 2026, ¥17,600 in September and ¥19,600 in October, down 10.5%, 3.7% and 8.0% year on year respectively. August and October 2025 were at the ¥21,300 level, above 2024, so 2026 is falling short of the prior year partly as a rebound from that. Compared with the same months of 2024 (August ¥19,700, October ¥18,500), 2026 is roughly level or slightly higher. The listed price (all-plan average, tax included) was about ¥35,900 in October 2026 and should be read separately from the estimated settled ADR.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (Nikko City, estimated settled ADR, 2 guests per room, tax-excluded equivalent, 112–127 properties; 2026 shows finalized months through October)

How large is the impact on supply? In our earlier report “Kinugawa-Kawaji Onsen: 3,574 Rooms, 60.8% in 14 Large Ryokan Hotels“, we counted 65 properties and 3,574 rooms in Kinugawa and Kawaji Onsen with sale prices confirmed between September 2025 and August 2026, including 14 large properties of 100 rooms or more (60.8% of rooms). Hotel New Ohruri was counted at the 100 rooms stated on its official website and included among the 8 wide-area chain properties with 1,067 rooms (29.9%). A simple calculation on the same basis shows that its closure leaves 3,474 operating rooms and 13 large properties with about 2,072 rooms, and the room share of wide-area chains falls from 29.9% to 27.8%. The closed rooms are 2.8% of the Kinugawa–Kawaji total, not enough to move supply and demand for the area as a whole, but it does remove one of the large properties that served its guest base with shuttle buses and low-price group plans.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (rooms by operator type from our earlier report on Kinugawa–Kawaji Onsen’s 3,574 rooms; 65 properties and 3,574 rooms with sale prices confirmed between September 2025 and August 2026)

That report also showed that the number of overnight guests in Kinugawa and Kawaji recovered to 1,203,030 in 2025, back above 1.2 million for the first time in six years. A large property leaving as demand returns also creates an opening for the remaining properties to take on group and shuttle demand. In fact, the operator that took on the closed properties from 2022 uses a low-price brand (Yufuri) and a mid-to-high price brand (Kamenoi Hotel) side by side, which can be read as a design that does not treat this guest base as one block but recaptures it price tier by price tier. As a point of comparison for acquiring onsen ryokan that can no longer continue and turning them around under one’s own brand, Ooedo Onsen Monogatari: 270K Reviews, TAOYA at 1.57x Prefecture ADR is also useful.

Implications for Operators and Investors — There Is More Than One Exit for Large Low-Price Properties

To sum up, of the 10 properties closed in 2021, four reopened under new operators within a year, more than half had switched to new brands within just over two years, and five years later, as of autumn 2026, eight are operating, one closed after being reopened by the group, and one has no announced successor. From the buyers’ and contract operators’ side, the same low-price, large, group-oriented assets were given three different exits depending on location and building conditions. Locations with a strong onsen identity, such as Kusatsu (3 minutes on foot from Yubatake), Yunishigawa and Okunikko, were renovated and converted to a mid-to-high price brand (Kamenoi Hotel). Locations with deep low-price demand, such as Shiobara and Nasu Takao, continued under a brand built on room-only stays (Yufuri). The 18-room small property was listed under a franchise-style brand (Tabist).

The spread of post-turnaround prices, from 0.4x to 1.7x the area median, is the result of these choices of exit, not a question of which is better. What is more useful for operators is to use the estimated settled ADR median of their area as the benchmark, decide first whether the property is designed to “sell above the median” or to “drive volume below the median,” and then align renovation spending and sales channels with that choice. For the closed property in Kinugawa, the official notice states only the fact of closure, and nothing has been announced about the future of the building or the land. How a 100-room building within shuttle-bus range of Kinugawa-Onsen Station will welcome its next operator is worth watching as the next case of large-property turnaround in the area.

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