Ski Jam Katsuyama (Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture), billed as one of the largest ski areas in western Japan, was renamed “JAM Fukui Katsuyama Mountain Resort” on April 1, 2026, and its ski-in official hotel reopened under the name “JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts (JAM福井勝山東急ホテル&リゾーツ)” (100 rooms), formerly “Hotel Harvest Ski Jam Katsuyama.” It is the first property in Fukui Prefecture to carry the Tokyu Hotels & Resorts brand. According to the resort’s official website, the 2026-27 ski season is scheduled to run from December 19, 2026 to April 4, 2027, so the hotel’s first winter under the new brand is just around the corner.

Over the past six months, hotel rates in Katsuyama appear to have transformed. In our municipality-level series of listed prices, Katsuyama moved in the ¥17,000–¥20,000 range from April to October 2025, then stepped up to ¥30,000–¥35,000 from April 2026 onward. However, Katsuyama has only a dozen or so listed properties, so one or two properties entering or leaving the sample can swing the median considerably. How much of the increase reflects the same properties raising prices, and how much is due to changes in which properties are listed? This article takes a property-by-property inventory of Katsuyama’s lodging stock, decomposes the rate change by fixing the sample to the 10 properties listed in both 2025 and 2026, and then reads the current listed price levels heading into the hotel’s first post-rebrand winter.

Note: The Katsuyama figures in this article cover properties for which listed prices on major booking sites (2 guests per room, tax included, average across all plans) could be observed for stay dates from April 2024 to March 2027; multiple listings of the same property were de-duplicated. “Operating” means a selling price was confirmed in the most recent 3 months (August–October 2026). The time series for JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts links the same property’s listed prices, including the period under its former name. Municipality-level estimated settled ADR covers only 4–7 properties and is shown for reference only; the main text relies primarily on listed prices.

The Rebrand — Tokyu Hotels & Resorts’ First in Fukui, 100 Ski-In Rooms

Let us first outline the facts from primary sources. According to a travel information site article (May 27, 2026), JAM Fukui Katsuyama Mountain Resort has a longest run of about 5,800m and 16 courses in total, and its official hotel, JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts, has 100 rooms, including Western-style rooms for up to 4 guests, Japanese-Western rooms for up to 5, maisonettes, and “Dinosaur Lab” rooms. Hot spring baths, an indoor pool, lounge drinks and snacks, and bonfires are included in the room rate under an all-inclusive model. Access is via the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Fukui Station, then the Echizen Railway to Katsuyama Station and a free shuttle bus of about 30 minutes, or about 20 minutes by car from Katsuyama IC on the Chubu Jukan Expressway.

A press release issued by the hotel on August 10, 2026 states that the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum is about 10 minutes away by car, and from August 13 the hotel sold stays with a “Premium Night Museum Tour” — a private after-hours visit to the museum (from ¥35,400 per adult, first 15 guests). On October 9, 2026, the resort operator Katsuyama Kogen Kaihatsu Co., Ltd. announced that former Japan national alpine skier Kentaro Minagawa had joined as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the resort business, and it enters the winter season under the banner “From one of western Japan’s largest to western Japan’s finest.”

Source: Compiled by HotelBank Editorial Team from a travel information site article (May 27, 2026), PR TIMES (August 10, 2026), and the JAM Fukui Katsuyama Mountain Resort official website

Katsuyama’s Lodging Stock — 14 Operating Properties, 275 Rooms; Two Hold 74% of Rooms

Next, we check how much weight this property carries in the town. Among the properties tracked by MetroEngines Research, 14 properties with 275 rooms (after de-duplication) in Katsuyama had confirmed selling prices on major booking sites in August–October 2026. Two of them — Katsuyama New Hotel (勝山ニューホテル, 103 rooms) and JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts (100 rooms) — account for 203 rooms (74%); the remaining 12 are all small properties of 12 rooms or fewer, including ryokan, pensions, inns attached to bathing facilities, and whole-house vacation rentals. Nine properties have fewer than 10 rooms, and four of those are vacation rentals or a riders’ house listing just one unit.

In other words, Katsuyama’s lodging market has a two-tier structure: two 100-room-class hotels and a long tail of inns with only a few rooms. Because the median listed price is set by the middle of the 14 properties — the 7th and 8th — a single small property dropping out and another being added can move the median by several thousand yen. This structure must be kept in mind when reading the rate figures that follow. The concentration of nearby rooms in a handful of large properties is common to major ski resorts across Japan; we summarize that supply structure in Japan’s 30 Ski Resorts: 40,419 Rooms Within 3km, Top 3 Hold 39%.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (properties in Katsuyama with confirmed selling prices in August–October 2026; N=14 properties / 275 rooms after de-duplication. Distances are straight-line from JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts)

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (circle size = number of rooms)

Two Peaks in Monthly Rates — Dinosaurs in August, Snow in January–February

Overlaying the monthly listed prices of JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts (average across all plans, 2 guests per room, tax included) shows that the property has two peaks a year. In 2025, February was highest at ¥55,300, followed by December at ¥54,400, August at ¥54,300 and January at ¥50,200, while April–July and September–November formed troughs of ¥37,000–¥43,000. Fukui Prefecture as a whole follows a single-peak pattern weighted toward the winter crab season, with listed prices of ¥30,000–¥33,000 in November–March and ¥24,000–¥28,000 in April–October, so Katsuyama’s “summer and winter twin peaks” clearly differ from the prefecture’s seasonality. The summer peak is driven by summer-holiday demand for the Dinosaur Museum; according to Forbes JAPAN, the museum drew 1.26 million visitors in fiscal 2024. How the dinosaur area forms a price tier separate from the station area and the onsen towns within Fukui Prefecture is analyzed in detail in Fukui’s 3 Hotel Clusters: 2.5x ADR Gap and the Upper-Mid Whitespace.

In 2026, both peaks shifted upward. Rates were already rising in the pre-rebrand winter, at ¥60,800 in January (+21.1% YoY) and ¥61,000 in February (+10.3%); after the rebrand, August was ¥61,500 (+13.3%), September ¥47,500 (+15.6%) and July ¥47,100 (+10.1%). Meanwhile, trough months grew modestly: April at ¥39,600 (−3.1%) and June at ¥39,300 (+5.0%). The same-property time series reveals a clear pattern: push pricing in peak-demand months and hold it in trough months.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts; listed prices of the same property including the period under its former name. October 2026 onward and January–March 2027 are estimates based on listed levels at the time of the survey)

Decomposing the Rate Increase — Of “¥20k → ¥32k,” Like-for-Like Price Increases Account for +10%

This is the core of the article. The median listed price of Katsuyama’s listed properties (after de-duplication) rose +58.1%, from ¥20,000 in August 2025 (N=14 properties) to ¥31,600 in August 2026 (N=14 properties). This is consistent with the move “from the ¥17,000–¥20,000 range to the ¥30,000–¥35,000 range” shown in the municipality-level listed price series. However, the picture changes when the sample is fixed to properties listed in all 18 months from April 2025 to September 2026. The median of the fixed 10 properties rose +9.9%, from ¥28,700 in August 2025 to ¥31,600 in August 2026; +9.8% in September, from ¥26,300 to ¥28,800; and +7.2% in July, from ¥27,500 to ¥29,500.

The fixed 10-property median was already in the ¥26,000–¥28,000 range in 2025, roughly ¥5,000–¥10,000 above the all-property median (¥17,000–¥22,000). The gap closed because small properties in the ¥10,000–¥20,000 range that were listed in 2025 were no longer listed in summer 2026, while two single-unit listings — a vacation rental and a riders’ house (¥70,000–¥80,000+ for 2 guests per room) — and an 8-room inn were newly added. In August 2026, the all-property median and the fixed 10-property median coincide at ¥31,600, meaning the effect of the turnover has fully played out.

Put differently, Katsuyama’s “+58%” breaks down into roughly +10% from like-for-like price increases, with most of the rest coming from changes in which properties are listed. Rates across the Katsuyama market did not rise 60%; rather, fewer low-priced listings and more high-priced listings pulled the median upward. The rebranded JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts’ own August growth (+13.3%) exceeds the fixed 10-property median (+9.9%), putting it a step ahead of the city’s typical price increase even on a like-for-like basis.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (Katsuyama; median of each property’s monthly average listed price. All properties N=12–15 depending on the month; the fixed cohort is the 10 properties listed in every month from April 2025 to September 2026)

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (listed prices are for 2 guests per room, tax included. Katsuyama’s estimated settled ADR rose +13.7%, from ¥19,500 in August 2025 (N=4) to ¥22,200 in August 2026 (N=7), but the sample is thin and the figure is for reference only)

Lining up the property-level price distributions for the two Augusts makes the turnover easier to see. In August 2025, 7 of the 14 properties clustered below ¥20,000, and the median sat at the top of that band. In August 2026, properties below ¥20,000 fell to 6, while 6 properties lined up between around ¥40,000 and the ¥80,000s. Because the median falls between these two clusters, it jumps even if individual properties do not raise prices much.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (August monthly average listed price of listed properties in Katsuyama; each dot = 1 property; N=14 properties each after de-duplication. One property, at ¥146,400 in August 2026, sits near the top of the chart)

Interestingly, on the lowest plan for the same months, JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts was slightly below the prior year: ¥37,400 in August (−5.2%) and ¥23,500 in September (−6.5%). The +13–16% growth in the all-plan average therefore reflects not a higher entry price but a richer mix of premium plans, such as stays with the Dinosaur Museum night tour or with two meals. The same pattern shows up in Katsuyama’s estimated settled ADR (an estimate derived by applying segment factors to the lowest-price level): August 2026 was ¥22,200 (N=7 properties), up only +13.7% from ¥19,500 (N=4 properties) a year earlier.

The First Post-Rebrand Winter — January–February Lowest Plans Listed at +19–32%

So how is winter priced? As of the survey date (October 20, 2026), JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts lists a lowest-plan level of ¥52,100 for January 2027, up +19.0% from ¥43,800 in January 2026; ¥53,600 for February, up +31.6% from ¥40,800 in February 2026; and ¥38,500 for March, up +13.0%. The all-plan average shows even larger increases, listed at ¥89,200 in January (+46.7%), ¥89,800 in February (+47.2%) and ¥65,600 in March (+28.5%). Given that the previous winter’s (2025-26 season) all-plan average was up +21.1% in January and +10.3% in February versus the 2024-25 season, the hotel is signaling double-digit increases at the listing stage for two consecutive seasons.

However, these are listed levels 2–4 months ahead of the stay dates and will change as plans are added and prices adjusted closer to check-in. For December, only 14 stay dates were listed at the time of the survey, so this article compares January–March. As in summer, the all-plan average is growing faster than the lowest plan, indicating a thick layer of premium plans such as stays with lift tickets or two meals in winter as well. Compared with Fukui Prefecture’s overall listed levels of ¥36,900 for January 2027 (N=289 properties) and ¥35,800 for February (N=262 properties), the winter lowest-plan level of this 100-room ski-in hotel is set at 1.4–1.5x that of a typical property in the prefecture.

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (lowest-plan level by month for JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts, 2 guests per room, tax included. The 2026-27 season reflects listed levels as of October 20, 2026)

Source: Compiled by MetroEngines Research and HotelBank Editorial Team (JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts, 2 guests per room, tax included. The 2026-27 season is an estimate based on listed levels as of October 20, 2026 and will change)

We also checked the demand-side evidence behind this pricing. An analysis of 547 guest reviews of the property compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team (November 2024 – October 2026) shows that comments about proximity to the slopes were the most common at 30.3% (166 reviews, of which 142 positive), followed by mentions of children’s facilities at 26.1% (143, of which 132 positive) and of family trips at 15.9% (87). Around 90% of comments on the hot spring (50 positive of 54) and the indoor pool (48 positive of 55) were also positive, with comments such as “reassuring even with kids” and “the pool was fun” standing out. The property is valued on both axes — skiing and families — which provides a foundation for its premium winter plans to be accepted.

Implications for Operators — How to Use the Pricing Headroom of a Twin-Peak Resort

The Katsuyama case offers three takeaways for owners of regional ski resorts or those considering a rebrand. First, municipality-level rate series are more sensitive to sample turnover the fewer properties a town has, so before concluding that “area rates have risen,” it is worth checking with a fixed cohort. In Katsuyama, like-for-like price increases accounted for only about +10% of the apparent +58%. The yardstick for measuring a property’s own pricing headroom is not the area median but how much the same set of properties raised prices.

Second, for properties with twin-peak demand, the same-property time series confirmed a design of holding trough months and concentrating increases in peak months. JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts kept April and June at around prior-year levels while listing double-digit increases for August and January–February. Because summer dinosaur demand and winter snow demand share the same customer segment (families), it is easy to build a path for marketing winter plans to customers acquired in summer — another strength of this location.

Third, there is the approach of lifting the average rate through the mix of premium plans rather than the entry price. The lowest plan is flat or slightly lower year on year, while the all-plan average is listed +13–47% higher, because plans bundling the night museum tour (from ¥35,400 per adult) and all-inclusive perks push the average up. Given that the resort is selling early-bird lift tickets at up to 31% off until December 18 and plans to run the shuttle bus from December 18 to April 4, the depth of winter plans combining lift tickets and transfers will be the key to the settled rate in the first winter. How far these premium plans convert into bookings should be re-examined using listed levels and estimated settled ADR as the January–February stay dates approach. Our comparison of total daily costs combining lift tickets and lodging at major ski resorts, Lift Ticket + Ski Lodging 2026-27: ¥14,800 Nozawa to ¥70,800 Rusutsu, also serves as a yardstick for designing winter plan pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What kind of property is JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts?
A. It is the 100-room ski-in official hotel formerly known as Hotel Harvest Ski Jam Katsuyama, rebranded on April 1, 2026. It follows an all-inclusive model in which hot spring baths, an indoor pool, and lounge drinks and snacks are included in the room rate, and it is located about 10 minutes by car from the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum and about 20 minutes from Katsuyama IC.

Q. Did hotel rates in Katsuyama really rise 60%?
A. The median listed price of Katsuyama’s listed properties rose +58.1%, from ¥20,000 in August 2025 to ¥31,600 in August 2026, but narrowing to the 10 properties listed in every month from April 2025 to September 2026 gives +9.9%. Most of the increase came from turnover in which properties are listed: small properties in the ¥10,000–¥20,000 range stopped being listed, while higher-priced vacation rentals and others were added.

Q. What are prices like for the first winter after the rebrand?
A. As listed on October 20, 2026, the lowest plan is ¥52,100 for January 2027 (+19.0% vs the prior season), ¥53,600 for February (+31.6%) and ¥38,500 for March (+13.0%). The all-plan average is ¥89,200 for January and ¥89,800 for February; all of these will change as check-in dates approach.

Q. When does the 2026-27 ski season start?
A. According to the resort’s official website, it is scheduled from December 19, 2026 to April 4, 2027. The adult 1-day lift ticket for weekends/holidays is regularly ¥6,200 and is sold at an early-bird price of ¥4,500 until December 18.

Summary

Following its April 1, 2026 rebrand, JAM Fukui Katsuyama Tokyu Hotels & Resorts posted listed-price (all-plan average) growth of +13.3% YoY in August and +15.6% in September, outpacing the median of Katsuyama’s fixed 10 properties (+9.9% and +9.8%) on a like-for-like basis. Meanwhile, the main reason Katsuyama’s overall median listed rate rose +58% is turnover in which properties are listed — market-wide rates did not rise 60%. For the first post-rebrand winter, the January–February lowest-plan level is listed at +19–32% and the all-plan average at around +47% as of the survey date. After the slopes open on December 19, 2026, how closely actual bookings keep up with these levels will be the next data point for measuring the effect of the brand conversion.