[Updated August 2026] Hotel Sansenkaku (ホテル三泉閣), a long-established hot-spring ryokan in Beppu founded in 1953 with 67 guest rooms in total, saw its business deteriorate after the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake and then take a further hit from COVID-19, and filed for self-bankruptcy at the Oita District Court on August 21, 2020. Debts totaled approximately ¥1.2 billion across two companies, including an affiliate. The building was subsequently renovated under a local Beppu hotel group and fully reopened in May 2025 as “Beppu Onsen Hotel Sansenkaku” (confirmed on the official website as of August 2026). Below, we add the background to the bankruptcy and what has happened since to our original breaking-news report published on August 27, 2020.
Hotel Sansenkaku Co., Ltd. (based in Beppu, Oita Prefecture; capital of ¥11 million), which operated the hotel, and the affiliated “Hotel Sansenkaku” filed for self-bankruptcy at the Oita District Court on August 21. Business conditions had been difficult ever since the Kumamoto Earthquake, and the impact of COVID-19 led the company to abandon efforts to continue operations. Total debts came to approximately ¥1.2 billion across the two companies, which is expected to make this the largest COVID-19-related bankruptcy by debt in the Kyushu-Okinawa region.
Hotel Sansenkaku was a hot-spring ryokan founded in 1953 with 67 guest rooms in total. Located an eight-minute walk from JR Beppu Station, it was long loved as an established ryokan standing in front of Beppu Tower, the city’s landmark. Drawing an abundant flow from its own hot-spring source, it offered guest rooms with free-flowing open-air baths and a footbath, along with 14 banquet rooms of various sizes including a grand hall accommodating up to 200 people, and it attracted many families and group travelers.
In recent years the hotel had expanded by capturing inbound demand from South Korea and Taiwan. According to Teikoku Databank, it recorded revenue of approximately ¥780 million in the fiscal year ended January 2008.
However, deteriorating Japan-South Korea relations and the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake weighed on its performance. On top of that, requests to refrain from going out amid the spread of COVID-19 kept guests away to an even greater degree, and debt repayments squeezed cash flow, leading to the current outcome.
The company filed for self-bankruptcy at the Oita District Court on the 21st. Debts are expected to total ¥1.0 billion for Sansenkaku and ¥200 million for the affiliate. This is the first COVID-19-related bankruptcy with debts exceeding ¥1.0 billion in the Kyushu-Okinawa region. Attorney Tetsuro Hori (堀哲郎) has been appointed to handle the case.
The company was also known for selling “Purupuru Pururin-chan,” a collagen hot-spring pudding made using the skin of Oita-grown fugu (pufferfish). After going on sale on February 1, 2010, it proved popular enough to top 80,000 units sold cumulatively within a year, and it became a beloved new signature sweet of Beppu Onsen.
How the Bankruptcy Unfolded (Timeline)
Here we lay out “what happened at Hotel Sansenkaku” in chronological order. Note that searches sometimes phrase this as the “Hotel Sansenkaku incident,” but what occurred at the property was not a criminal case — it was the business failure (self-bankruptcy) described below.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| June 1953 | Founded. Operates as a hot-spring ryokan in front of Beppu Tower |
| February 1992 | Takes over an affiliated company’s hotel business and reorganizes as a corporation |
| FY ended January 2008 | Records annual revenue of approximately ¥780 million |
| April 2016 | Visitor numbers decline due to the impact of the Kumamoto Earthquake |
| FY ended January 2017 | Annual revenue falls to approximately ¥599 million |
| April 2020 | Guest numbers plunge following the declaration of a state of emergency |
| August 21, 2020 | Files for self-bankruptcy at the Oita District Court. Debts of approximately ¥1.2 billion across two companies including the affiliate |
| August 24, 2020 | The Oita District Court issues an order commencing bankruptcy proceedings. Debts of approximately ¥1.0 billion (Hotel Sansenkaku alone) |
Sales fell as the group-travel market contracted and the Kumamoto Earthquake hit, compounded by a drop in inbound visitors amid worsening Japan-South Korea relations. The hotel had been working to turn things around by making use of “fukko-wari” post-disaster travel discounts and by strengthening online customer acquisition, but the spread of COVID-19 proved to be the decisive blow. Ryokan failures of this type went on to spread nationwide as the fallout from the pandemic overlapped with repayments coming due on Japan’s effectively interest-free, unsecured “zero-zero” COVID relief loans.
What Came Next — Reopened in May 2025 as “Beppu Onsen Hotel Sansenkaku”
The hotel closed after the bankruptcy, but the site did not become vacant land. Renovation work was carried out at the same address (3-6-23 Kitahama, Beppu, Oita Prefecture), and the property fully reopened in May 2025 as “Beppu Onsen Hotel Sansenkaku”. The new official website explicitly states “Full renovation reopening, May 2025,” and as of August 2026 we confirmed that the hotel is operating and accepting accommodation bookings through that site. The official website describes the work as a “full renovation,” and we found no publicly disclosed information indicating that the building was demolished and rebuilt.
Operations are now part of a local hotel group that runs properties in Beppu including “Hotel Hayashi,” “Hotel Fujiyoshi” and “Seaside Hotel Mimatsu.” Hotel Sansenkaku appears on the group hotel list on that group’s official website (confirmed August 2026). Since reopening, the property has positioned itself as a Japanese-modern inn blending the comfort of a city hotel with the character of a Japanese-style ryokan, highlighting views of Beppu Bay and Mt. Tsurumi from the observation deck on the top (ninth) floor, as well as its location directly facing Beppu Tower. This route back into the market — a failed long-established property reopening under different ownership — has become a recurring pattern, and it typically comes with room for rate upside once the building has been renovated.
How Beppu’s Lodging Market Has Fared Since
• Listed-price ADR (average daily rate) = the aggregated level of the lowest-priced plan each property publishes on OTA sites (for two guests in one room, per-room rate, tax included).
• Estimated transacted ADR = an estimated transacted rate (tax-excluded equivalent) calculated by applying property-type adjustment factors to the published prices above. In a cross-check against property-level actuals disclosed by listed hotel REITs (91 properties, most recent three months), the median error was approximately 7%. These are estimates and differ from each property’s actual transacted prices and accounting figures.
• ADR at the area level (prefecture or municipality) is the median of the estimated transacted rates of the properties covered (the level of a typical property in that area).
• Where listed prices are mentioned, the figures are per-room rates for two guests in one room (tax included).
• Source: MetroEngines Research (continuous tracking of OTA published prices for approximately 168,000 properties in Japan, of which approximately 27,000 have confirmed operations)
The year Sansenkaku went bankrupt, 2020, was the trough of the pandemic, but Beppu’s lodging market has recovered and expanded since then. According to the HotelBank Editorial Team’s aggregation of public OTA data, the number of properties listed in Beppu rose from 175 in January 2024 to 209 in May 2026. The average daily rate (ADR) on an OTA listed-price basis averaged approximately ¥28,900 in 2024 and approximately ¥29,200 in 2025 (in both cases N=169-189 properties per month, aggregated from January 2024 to December 2025). The editorial team’s estimated transacted ADR averaged approximately ¥15,200 in 2025 (an estimate; N=113-124 properties per month).
Against the backdrop of this market recovery, Beppu continues to see moves to renovate and revive long-established properties, and Sansenkaku’s reopening is one example. On the economics facing new entrants to Beppu, our article KOKO HOTELS Beppu: Limited-Service Meets Onsen Resort Economics offers a useful reference point.
Sources & References
- Kanko Keizai Shimbun, “Beppu’s ‘Hotel Sansenkaku’ Enters Bankruptcy Proceedings” (October 2, 2020; based on Teikoku Databank research)
- Beppu Onsen Hotel Sansenkaku official website (confirmed August 2026)
- Affiliated hotel group official website (group hotel list; confirmed August 2026)
- Beppu market data: HotelBank Editorial Team research (public OTA data, aggregated as of August 2026)
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