We tallied 135,021 guest reviews posted for lodging facilities in Gifu Prefecture over the past 24 months by language: 24.1% were written in a language other than Japanese, and the fourth most common language — after English (14.9%) and Traditional Chinese (2.6%) — was Spanish (2.3%). Next to neighboring Nagano Prefecture, where foreign-language reviews account for 17.0% and Spanish for just 0.3%, Gifu stands out as a prefecture that Spanish-speaking travelers actively write about. What guests value also changes with the language: English reviews lead with food and location, Traditional Chinese with proximity to the station and hot springs, and Spanish, French and German with attentive service. This article lays out the evaluation criteria by language in numbers, introduces properties discussed in English, Traditional Chinese and Spanish with actual review excerpts, and — drawing on the estimated settled ADR of Takayama City, Gero City and Shirakawa Village and the dates of the 2027 Shirakawa-go Light-Up — examines from an operator’s perspective how to serve a multilingual guest base.

Language Mix — 24.1% Foreign Languages, With Spanish Right Behind English and Traditional Chinese

First, the overall composition. Of the 135,021 reviews, 102,517 (75.9%) were in Japanese and 20,130 (14.9%) in English — together more than 90%. The remaining roughly 10% is split among Traditional Chinese (3,564, 2.6%), Spanish (3,121, 2.3%), Korean (2,100, 1.6%), French (2,011, 1.5%), Simplified Chinese (895, 0.7%) and German (683, 0.5%). The three East Asian languages — Traditional Chinese, Korean and Simplified Chinese — total 4.9%, while the three European languages — Spanish, French and German — total 4.3%, meaning East Asia and Europe are almost evenly matched.

Source: HotelBank Editorial Team research (Gifu Prefecture, past 24 months, N=135,021 reviews, top 8 languages)

Comparing this mix with other prefectures clarifies Gifu’s position. The same tally for Nagano Prefecture (N=262,584) shows foreign languages at 17.0% — English 13.5%, Traditional Chinese 1.3%, Spanish only 0.3% — so Gifu’s foreign-language share is 7 points higher than Nagano’s. Hokkaido (N=554,951) has 19.7% foreign-language reviews, with a heavy weighting toward Asian languages: English 9.5%, Korean 5.1%, Traditional Chinese 3.7%. Okinawa (N=326,475) is even more East Asia–oriented, with Traditional Chinese 7.9%, English 7.6% and Korean 6.0% within a 23.8% foreign-language share. Yamanashi (N=161,203) has 24.2% foreign-language reviews and 16.4% English — nearly the same foreign share as Gifu, but a higher English share. In other words, Gifu matches Okinawa and Yamanashi in its overall foreign-language share, but its depth in English and European languages gives it a guest profile that differs from Hokkaido or Okinawa.

Source: HotelBank Editorial Team research (each prefecture, past 24 months, share of review counts across the top 8 languages)

Official statistics are consistent with this share. According to the Japan Tourism Agency’s Overnight Travel Statistics Survey for calendar 2025 (final figures), Gifu Prefecture recorded 8,138,340 guest nights (−2.7% YoY, +11.4% vs. 2019), of which foreign guests accounted for 2,004,510 (+3.9% YoY, +20.7% vs. 2019) — a foreign share of 24.6%. This is close to the 24.1% foreign-language share of reviews, but since review counts are not guest counts and language does not equal nationality, it is best to read the two as sharing a common context: a prefecture where roughly one in four guests comes from abroad.

Spanish Ahead of French — National Inbound Trends and What Is Unique to Gifu

The fact that Spanish (3,121 reviews) exceeds French (2,011) in Gifu runs counter to the national ranking of visitor arrivals. According to the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), cumulative arrivals for January–September 2026 were 354,000 from France (+6.6% YoY) and 327,600 from Germany (+2.6%), versus 194,300 from Spain (+8.5%) — only about 55% of France’s volume. Spain’s growth rate, however, has been among the highest of the major European markets: 245,576 visitors in 2025 (+34.7% YoY) and 182,284 in 2024 (+57.3%), more than 30% growth two years in a row. Spanish-language reviews also include posts from outside Spain; in the same JNTO statistics, Mexico recorded 173,500 visitors in January–September 2026 (+25.8%), and 22,300 in September alone (+13.0%), a record for the month of September. We can confirm that arrivals from Latin America and Spain are growing nationally, and that the Spanish-language share is even higher in Gifu — but review data alone cannot explain why Spanish leads among European languages in Gifu. This article limits itself to presenting the facts and refrains from asserting a cause.

Evaluation Criteria by Language — English: Food and Location; Traditional Chinese: Station Access; European Languages: Attentive Service

This is the core of the analysis. Listing the top 8 criteria by mention rate in each language shows, in numbers, that each language “sees” a property differently. In Japanese, the top criterion is overall food (27.3%), followed by room cleanliness (14.9%) and overall service (12.9%). English is also led by food (20.3%), but overall location (18.4%) and cleanliness (18.2%) are nearly tied, and friendly staff (16.8%) and proximity to the station (16.6%) also rank high. English reviews spread their attention across criteria rather than concentrating on any single one. The results of applying the same method nationwide across 3.45 million reviews in 8 languages are summarized in What Guests Write About in 8 Languages — 3.46M Review Tag Analysis, which serves as the baseline for comparing Gifu’s language-specific patterns with national trends.

Source: HotelBank Editorial Team research (Gifu Prefecture, past 24 months, N=135,021 reviews). % = share of reviews in each language that mention the criterion

Traditional Chinese offers a contrast. Its top criterion is proximity to the station (21.2%), followed by room size (18.8%) and hot springs (18.0%), while food ranks only 7th at 12.7%. This suggests itineraries that use Takayama and Gero stations as bases, travel by train and bus, and center the experience on spacious rooms and hot springs. Simplified Chinese shares the same tendency, with location (20.3%) and hot springs (19.3%) at the top. Korean is led by hot springs (22.3%) with food (20.3%) second — a combination that evaluates bathing and dining together, much like Japanese reviews.

The three European languages, meanwhile, rank their criteria in strikingly similar order. Spanish: attentive service (31.4%), room size (23.4%), central location (21.7%). French: attentive service (30.0%), room size (21.2%), central location (20.2%). German: attentive service (32.4%), central location (27.2%), baths (18.0%). In all three, around 30% of reviews mention attentive service — a criterion that does not even make the top 8 in Japanese reviews, yet ranks first in the European languages. They value “being in the center of town” over “being close to the station,” and write about “how people treated them” rather than “the food.” This can be read as the lens that European-language guests in Gifu bring to their stay.

Source: HotelBank Editorial Team research (Gifu Prefecture, past 24 months, N=135,021 reviews). The criterion with the highest mention rate in each language

Properties Discussed in English, Traditional Chinese and Spanish — Review Examples

Once the criteria are clear, it also becomes visible which properties are talked about in which language. Below are properties in Gifu Prefecture with high mention counts for each criterion, together with reviews (partial quotes) actually posted in the relevant language. Mention counts and rates are relative to reviews in all languages; the figure after the slash is the property’s total number of reviews. All mentions are in a positive context.

Source: HotelBank Editorial Team research (past 24 months, November 2024–October 2026). Reviews are partial quotes; reviewer attributes are not shown

What this table shows is that the same property can be described with a different face depending on the language. At Hotel Wood Takayama, 352 of 856 English reviews (41.1%) mention “location,” while Spanish reviews put service and central location first — “the staff are super friendly,” “right in the center of Takayama.” Gero Onsen Suimeikan is praised on entirely different criteria: “the hot spring is comfortable” in Traditional Chinese, “the staff are pleasant” in French. For the hotels in front of Takayama Station, the station-proximity mention rate in Traditional Chinese reviews reaches 30–40%; at Country Hotel Takayama, 564 of 1,444 reviews (39.1%) refer to its closeness to the station. Oyado Koto no Yume, which draws many Spanish-language posts, is a 23-room ryokan where 18.6% of reviews mention attentive service — a remarkably high density.

Properties in Takayama City dominate the list, which also reflects the fact that Takayama is the area with the most reviews in the prefecture. Takayama also has properties such as Tokyu Stay Hida Takayama Musubi no Yu (東急ステイ飛騨高山 結の湯) and Hidakarinosato Takayama Ouan (飛騨花里の湯 高山桜庵) with high mention rates for station proximity and hot springs; across languages, the common thread is support for stays that combine a station-front location with hot spring bathing.

Estimated Settled ADR in Takayama, Gero and Shirakawa — Takayama Peaks in Autumn, Shirakawa in Winter

After reviews, rates. Tracking MetroEngines Research’s estimated settled ADR (municipal median, tax-excluded equivalent) from July 2025, Takayama City reached its most recent peak of ¥20,900 in October 2025 (N=125 properties), showing a structure in which rates rise with the autumn foliage. In 2026, rates held in the ¥15,000 range through winter and spring — ¥15,900 in February (N=137) and ¥15,800 in March (N=141) — before falling to ¥14,000 in June (N=138). Summer recovered to ¥18,100 in August (N=138), and September came in at ¥16,700 (N=140), +2.7% above the same month a year earlier (¥16,200). July (−6.2% YoY), August (−2.4%) and October (¥20,300, N=141, −2.7%) were slightly below the prior year. Even so, among municipalities with 10 or more covered properties, autumn pricing in Takayama has ranked at the top of the prefecture for two consecutive years. How the timing of the autumn peak shifts from municipality to municipality within the prefecture is tracked city by city in Gifu Hotel ADR 2026: Autumn Peaks Split Oct, Nov and Dec by Area.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (estimated settled ADR, municipal median, tax-excluded equivalent. Takayama City N=119–142, Gero City N=42–49, Shirakawa Village N=5–8 properties. November–December 2026 are estimates based on listed prices at the time of the survey)

Gero City peaks at a different time from Takayama. Rates climb into the ¥20,000 range from late autumn through New Year — ¥21,700 in November 2025 (N=43) and ¥20,100 in January 2026 (N=45) — but fall to ¥12,900 in June (N=48), giving Gero a wider annual swing than Takayama. In 2026, July was ¥14,200 (N=49), August ¥18,300 (N=49) and September ¥15,800 (N=48), with the summer months running below the prior year. However, listed prices for November 2026 point to ¥20,300 (N=48), an estimate back in the ¥20,000 range close to November 2025 (¥21,700), indicating that winter demand for the hot spring town continues to be reflected in rates.

Shirakawa Village has only 5–8 covered properties, so the median can shift with the movement of a single property and should be read with that in mind. Even so, the trend is clear: against ¥13,100–14,800 in July–September 2025, rates reached ¥21,900 in December (N=5), ¥19,900 in January 2026 (N=5) and an annual high of ¥26,800 in February (N=7). In January–February, when snow covers the gassho-zukuri village, rates run roughly 1.5–2 times summer levels. Summer 2026 — ¥17,900 in July (N=8), ¥19,000 in August (N=8) and ¥18,200 in September (N=8) — ran about 30% above the prior year in every month. For reference, estimated settled ADR in Gujo City (N=25–29) and Gifu City (N=29–32) stayed in the ¥7,000–¥12,000 range throughout the period; the prefecture’s higher rates are concentrated in the Hida region and hot spring towns.

Source: Compiled by the HotelBank Editorial Team from MetroEngines Research (estimated settled ADR, municipal median, tax-excluded equivalent)

On the supply side in Takayama, Hilton Takayama Resort opened on September 14, 2026. Hilton’s “Company Overview” (updated August 25, 2026) lists it among planned openings in Gifu Prefecture as “opening 2026, 283 rooms.” According to the operator, JR Tokai Hotels, it began operating with 91 rooms at opening, with all 283 rooms planned to be available in spring 2027 as renovation progresses. It is located about 8 minutes by free shuttle bus from JR Takayama Station, and it is reasonable to assume that this phased addition of rooms is only partially reflected in Takayama’s rate estimates from October 2026 onward. The arrival of an international brand could further broaden the guest base in Takayama, where the share of reviews written in English and European languages is high. How much existing supply the Hida high-rate tier had before the opening is laid out in Hilton Takayama Resort Opens Sept 14: 283 Rooms Into a 562-Room Tier.

Shirakawa-go Light-Up 2027 — Four Nights by Advance Reservation Only, and Winter Rates in Shirakawa Village

No discussion of winter in Shirakawa Village is complete without the illumination of the gassho-zukuri village. According to the event outline published by the Shirakawa-go Tourist Association on October 1, 2026, the 41st (2027) Shirakawa-go Light-Up will be held four times — on Monday, January 11, 2027 (national holiday), and Sundays January 17, January 24 and January 31 — from 17:30 to 19:30 each night in the Ogimachi district of Shirakawa Village. As before, attendance will be managed through a “fully advance-reservation” system and “admission tickets”; visitors who arrive on the day without a reservation cannot participate, and no tickets are sold on the day. Participation is divided into two categories — with or without viewing from the observation deck — and the association also specifies a gate operation under which visitors without an admission ticket cannot enter Shirakawa-go after 15:30.

The framework for accommodation is also set. Applications for the 2027 Light-Up accommodation lottery closed on October 31, 2026, and winners will be notified by email on November 10. Standard-car parking reservations for the first round, which went on sale at 13:00 on September 10, have sold out; the second round is scheduled to go on sale on the association’s website at 13:00 on December 1, 2026. In short, staying in the village on Light-Up nights is by lottery, and day trips require a parking or bus-tour reservation; under this kind of visitor management, overnight stays in the village are themselves scarce. That said, all four nights of the 41st edition fall in January 2027, and of the previous 40th edition (January 12, 18 and 25, and February 1, 2026), only one night fell in February. January, which held the other three nights, came in at ¥19,900 (N=5) — below February’s ¥26,800 (N=7) — so the Light-Up’s contribution cannot be isolated from the monthly median.

Implications for Operators — Multilingual In-House Guides and “Putting Service Into Words”

To sum up, the way guests look at Gifu’s properties falls into three patterns by language. English pays roughly equal attention to food, location, cleanliness, baths and service; Traditional and Simplified Chinese prioritize station access, room size and hot springs; and Spanish, French and German put attentive service and a location in the center of town first. The most practical place for operators to use this difference is the “order of information” in in-house guides and booking-site descriptions. Even with the same content, putting the distance from the station and bus terminal and information about the large communal baths first in the Traditional Chinese version, and leading with staff support and in-stay help desks in the Spanish and French versions, aligns the order of information with the criteria guests are praising in their reviews.

The fact that attentive service has a mention rate of around 30% in the three European languages is also a significant opportunity. “Attentiveness,” which tends to be taken for granted and rarely written about in Japanese reviews, is put into words by European-language guests as the most memorable part of their stay. Everyday interactions — explanations at check-in, local guidance, handling of luggage — become the top driver of guest evaluations from abroad. By reflecting this in multilingual guides and the wording of official websites, properties can communicate the strengths they are already praised for as pre-booking information. Several properties in the prefecture are also collecting positive mentions of English-language service — 50 at Hotel and Spa Gift Takayama, 48 at Magome Chaya (馬籠茶屋) and 40 at Hotel Wood Takayama, for example — showing that some properties have reached the stage where their ability to communicate in English is itself written up in reviews.

On rates, because the seasonal peaks differ — autumn in Takayama, winter in Shirakawa Village and Gero — there is room to stagger demand peaks across areas for multilingual travelers touring the Hida region. Because the four Light-Up nights are fully reservation-based and in-village accommodation is by lottery, itineraries that stay in Takayama or Gero and visit the Light-Up as a day trip emerge structurally, creating an opportunity to factor this inflow into January rates in Takayama and Gero. Given that European-language reviews value “the center of town,” properties closer to Takayama’s old town are arguably best positioned to capture winter touring demand.

Summary

Of 135,021 guest reviews in Gifu Prefecture, 24.1% were in foreign languages: English 14.9%, Traditional Chinese 2.6%, Spanish 2.3%, Korean 1.6% and French 1.5%. Compared with Nagano’s 17.0% foreign-language share and 0.3% Spanish, Gifu stands out for its high volume of Spanish-language posts. This is consistent with the continued strong growth of arrivals from Spain and Latin America nationwide, but review data alone cannot explain why Spanish exceeds French in Gifu. The evaluation criteria by language follow clear patterns — English: food and location; Traditional Chinese: station access, room size and hot springs; the three European languages: attentive service and central location — and the same property can be described quite differently depending on the language. Rates peak in autumn for Takayama City (¥20,900 in October 2025), late autumn to New Year for Gero City (¥21,700 in November 2025) and winter for Shirakawa Village (¥26,800 in February 2026, N=5–8 properties), and the January 2027 Shirakawa-go Light-Up has been confirmed as four nights by advance reservation only. Changing the “order of information” by language in multilingual in-house guides, and putting into words the attentive service that European-language guests value, is likely the most accessible growth opportunity for Gifu’s properties given this guest mix.

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