HOSHINOYA Kyoto named a Top Hotel in Japan by Condé Nast Traveler's readers
A nearly 800,000-response reader poll named Hoshino Resorts' Arashiyama ryokan one of Japan's Top Hotels — the kind of English-language recognition that shapes inbound demand before a guest even books the boat transfer.
Hoshino Resorts said HOSHINOYA Kyoto, its riverside ryokan in Arashiyama, was named one of Japan's "Top Hotels" in Condé Nast Traveler's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards, the operator announced on 7 October, a day after the US travel title published its winners. Condé Nast Traveler said the list drew more than 798,000 responses from readers rating travel experiences worldwide, calling the awards its longest-running reader survey.
HOSHINOYA Kyoto opened in 2009 on a stretch of the Oi River about 15 minutes upstream by boat from the crowds at Togetsukyo Bridge, on ground once used as a retreat by Heian-era nobility; every room looks onto the river. It is one of more than 60 properties Hoshino Resorts now runs in Japan and abroad, under brands spanning the luxury HOSHINOYA line to the more casual OMO and BEB city hotels, led by fourth-generation operator Yoshiharu Hoshino.
A reader poll is not a rating body's audit, but for a property that depends on English-speaking inbound guests willing to book a boat transfer before they even reach the hotel, visibility inside a US travel title's reader base is itself most of the commercial value — the kind of recognition that shapes which hotel search results surface a Kyoto stay to an American traveller long before they land.