Miyako Hotel

The Miyako Hotel was the largest and most popular of Kyoto’s “big three” hotels in the first half of the twentieth century (the others being the Kyoto Hotel and the Station Hotel). It developed out of the Yoshimizu-en (吉水園), a pleasure garden established in 1890 by Kyoto merchant Nishimura Nihei (西村仁兵衛) and his father on newly-cultivated land in the Higashiyama hills. This soon became a popular sightseeing spot in Meiji-era Kyoto for locals to enjoy views over the city, hold cultural events and social gatherings.

In 1900, Nishimura converted the Yoshimizu-en into the Miyako Hotel. It soon superseded the Yaami Hotel, which had suffered a huge fire the previous year, as the finest hotel in the city. Initially, upon opening, it had eighteen guest rooms, two dining rooms, two lounges, a billiard room and bar. By 1906, it had expanded, with new buildings across the large site that brought the total number of bedrooms close to 150. Further redesigns occurred over the following decades, including a new wing added in 1928. 

In 1914, rooms began at ¥2.50 a night or ¥6 (single room) and ¥12 (double room) on the  American plan, which included three meals. By 1941, the price of an American plan rooms had risen to ¥12 for a single.

The Miyako also managed other hotels in Kyoto, including the Daibutsu Hotel and the Mt. Hiei Hotel (Eizan Hoteru 叡山ホテル). 

Viewing Japan from the Miyako

The Miyako, perhaps more than any other hotel in Kyoto, played an active role in shaping views of the city and, in turn, Japan. From its well-promoted veranda and front-facing rooms, tourists could literally gaze down upon Kyoto. But also, the hotel produced English-language guidebooks, sightseeing pamphlets, and postcards picturing and explaining Kyoto and Japanese culture. 

An Information Bureau, ran by the hotel secretary (Englishman Bernard Thomson in 1906), provided guidance about accommodation and transport across Japan. Also, close to the entrance in the main building, there were “Show Rooms in which merchants from the city display, and offer for sale, samples of the principal artistic productions of Kyoto.” Staff, particularly young, female frontline workers, were given a role to play, not only in promoting the hotel, but also performing Kyoto/Japan through uniforms and service styles: “The dainty little maid-servants, in their brightly coloured kimonos, who wait at the tables, give a delightful and additional attraction to the excellently cooked food” (Miyako Hotel 1906, 7). 

The Miyako Hotel in the empire

The Miyako Hotel’s success, as a luxurious grand hotel and a window on the old capital, is suggested in the role it was repeatedly given in representing Japan on the international stage from the early 1900s to the 1940s. Guests of the state were accommodated there on visits to Kyoto, including for example, Queen Victoria’s grandson, Prince Arthur of Connaught, in 1906 and 1912. 

In terms of tourism policy across the empire, the Miyako Hotel also played an important role at the national level. Managers of the big hotels in Kyoto, including the Miyako, took part in debates in industry publications such as Kokusai Kankō, the journal of the Board of Tourist Industry, on issues ranging from hotel service styles to the role of tourism in cultural propaganda (e.g.“Kankō zakkan,” Kokusai Kankō 3 (1935): 35–38).

As all this suggests, the influence and importance of the Miyako Hotel far exceeded its prime location in the lush elevations of Higashiyama. As one of cartographer Yoshida Hatsusaburō’s many bird’s eye maps of “Kyoto and Environs,” printed in a 1928 Miyako Hotel pamphlet, neatly illustrates, the hotel was closely linked not only to the rest of Kyoto but the farthest reaches of the empire (i.e. Karafuto or Sakhalin in the north and Korea in the west, just visible at the edges of the map).