Japan Incentive Group

Our company is very familiar, and has marvelous relationships with all the major luxury hotels in Japan. If you are wishing to stay at any one of them, please let us know and we will put our contacts into good use on your behalf.

For incentive groups, however, it may also be interesting to consider hotels that are “made in Japan”, and there is a great variety – from luxury, to more standard offerings, and even to business hotels. For the truly adventurous in slumber, we may even recommend a night in a capsule hotel, or even a sleeper train as you move from one city to the next.

But one thing that we often enjoy seeing our guests try out is the traditional “ryokan-inn” hotel in Japan. This is a marvelous cultural experience that is very rewarding.

Guests arrive at the ryokan and are asked to remove their shoes and step up into the inn. Shoes are put away in a front foyer area and you check in. The staff will ask when would you like to be served dinner, and it is typical that once you check in you will stay and enjoy the ryokan and all its comforts.

You go to your room and find it to be very traditional-style. Tatami-mats for the floor, shoji-paper screens for windows, and sliding fusuma-doors. It is all wood and reeds and smells wonderful. There are robes here and jackets that go over the top, and belts for robes. It’s timeto change out of your clothes and into true comfort.

Most guests will take some time before the dinner to go to the onsen baths. Barefoot step into your slippers and wander out to where the baths are. They are usually quite big and you can smell the minerals in the water and feel the thickening air and heat. Step into your gender-appropriate changeroom and leave your robes and undergarments behind. You may have a smaller modesty-towel to take with you as you enter the foggy misty space.

Take some time to sit on the low stools in front of a mirror and wash yourself from crown to toes. Leave no nook or cranny unwashed and then rinse off completely – as no soap is to go into the baths themselves.

And then go and soak in bliss.

There may be a variety of different baths to try, of differing mineral contents and temperatures. And a sauna may also be available too.

While it is not so much a Western cultural activity, in Japan a shared onsen bath is no more than a shared gym space or a shared dining space or a shared pub or bar. It is where people go, to enjoy and to relax. Leave all apprehension behind and take the plunge. I am sure that you will not regret it in the least once you do.

Following the baths, you may now find yourself in your room or a shared space with companions for a “kaiseki” dinner. This will be a multi-course feast of many dozens of tiny morsels of pickles and fish, seafood and tofu, local vegetables, grilled meats of all sorts, and great traditional Japanese delicacies. And of course sake! Beer, wine, and other drinks are also all available. The feast will likely go for an hour or two and it is a delight.

Then, having been well fed and in good spirits you are free to hang out, drink some more, laze about at your leisure, go for another bath, and entertain yourselves accordingly.

This really is how Japan relaxes – and they do it in style.