Hoshino Resorts' Unkai Terrace at Tomamu passes 2 million visitors in its 21st season

Hoshino Resorts said its Unkai Terrace observation deck at Tomamu, Hokkaido passed 2 million cumulative visitors on 29 July, marking the milestone in the deck's 21st operating season, according to the company's announcement.

The terrace sits at 1,088 metres above the resort in Shimukappu Village, reached by gondola, and is built around the unkai (cloud sea) phenomenon — a temperature inversion that can fill the valley below with cloud on suitable mornings. This year's season runs from 13 May to 13 October.

Hoshino marked the milestone with a ceremony at the terrace and distributed commemorative towels to those present. It is running a short run of anniversary products through 5 August: a limited-edition Cloud Sea Yogurt drink (¥700) and a Cloud Sea Tumbler (¥1,800), a revived paper "postcard ticket," and a commemorative cloud-shaped installation called Cloud Wish, where visitors can write a wish.

"The ceremony was wonderful," one visitor from the Kanto region said in the announcement, describing writing a wish on the Cloud Wish message card.

The arithmetic behind the milestone is telling on its own: 2 million visitors across 21 seasons works out to an average of roughly 95,000 a season, though Hoshino did not disclose a year-by-year breakdown, so growth or plateau within that run is not visible from the release. What the figure does confirm is how far a single observation deck, built around a free weather phenomenon rather than a constructed attraction, has become a signature draw for a Hokkaido resort that has increasingly leaned on experience-led rather than room-led selling points — a lower-cost, harder-to-copy asset than another restaurant or spa.