Hoshino Resorts to open a tenth HOSHINOYA, in Nara's newly UNESCO-listed Asuka Village
A 35-suite resort from ¥193,000 a night lands in July 2027 on the site of Japan's first capital — Hoshino's most explicitly heritage-branded HOSHINOYA yet, timed to Asuka's fresh UNESCO listing.
Hoshino Resorts said it will open HOSHINOYA Asuka, its tenth HOSHINOYA property, on 22 July 2027 in Asuka Village, Nara Prefecture. Reservations opened the same day as the announcement, 25 September.
The resort will have 35 suites across single-storey, detached rooms in four types, ranging from about 70 to 260 square metres with ceilings up to roughly four metres, according to the company. Rates start from ¥193,000 a night per room, including tax and service but excluding meals.
Built around a UNESCO listing
Hoshino frames the resort around Asuka Village's status as the site of Asuka-kyo, Japan's capital roughly 1,400 years ago, and around "Ancient Capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara," the UNESCO World Heritage designation the area received in July 2026 — almost exactly a year before the resort opens. The company's own concept line for the project is "a sanctuary of stillness at Japan's origin."
The design borrows directly from the setting: a terraced garden modelled on the village's rice terraces, guest rooms that incorporate local stone monuments and tiled roofing, and — in its Akane-type rooms — a stone-lined bath Hoshino calls a "stone chamber." The property sits around four minutes by car from Asuka Station on the Kintetsu Yoshino Line.
Nara has long been the day-trip casualty of the Kansai luxury-hospitality build-out — overshadowed by Kyoto's temple circuit and Osaka's food and shopping pull, with comparatively few properties able to hold overnight guests at flagship rates. A HOSHINOYA priced from ¥193,000 a night is a direct bet that a UNESCO listing, timed almost exactly to the opening, can do for Asuka what Michelin recognition and Dark Sky Park status have done for other HOSHINOYA sites: give an operator-set price a credential beyond its own marketing. Whether Asuka's ancient-capital narrative can pull enough guests away from Kyoto to fill 35 suites a night is the question the heritage listing alone won't answer.