Although we are a bike tour company, we would love to promote ski business in Japan. As you know, Japan is very mountainous island country, actually 70% of the land are mountains. And at the same time Japanese archipelago is long from north to south, so in northern Japan we have much snow during the winter (the middle of December to the end of March). It is said that we have more than 600 ski resorts (or villages), and maybe this is a bit too many…
In the ‘ 80 and early 90′, when Japan enjoyed its bubble economy, a lot of small mountain villages were developed as ski resorts and there were a big ski boom among young people. But after bubble economy was over, the ski boom was also over, so the population of skiers and snowboarders decreased rapidly. Only huge amount of debts were remained at the local villages.
Thanks to Australians who discovered the quality of snow in Niseko in Hokkaido, now they became international to attract many skiers and snowboarders from all over the world. But as we mentioned above, we have more than 600 ski resorts (oh, some of them are too small to call “resorts”, though…), there are plenty of possibilities to bring in more visitors.
<<Five advantages about skiing in Japan>>
1. Japanese food - Food in ski lodge is sometime very poor, but still if you stay over night there you won’t be disappointed by food in the villages or Ryokans you are staying at.
2. Onsen hot spring – Skiing and Onsen are always best matching! Most of the ski mountains are very close from Onsen.
3. Reasonable lift ticket - Even high Japanese yen, the lift tickets are not so expensive compared to those in U.S.A. or Europa.
4. Not so crowded - As Japanese young people are not so interested in snow sports these days, so ski mountains are less crowded. You don’t normally need to wait in the long line for the lift except for some national holidays.
5. Quality of the snow – Top season is in February.
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After the eathquake, Tsunami and nuclear accident in northern Japan this year, the tourism was damaged a lot and still now they don’t have enough tourists. Ski is a big industry during the winter for them and they are afraid that they will have much less customers this winter. So they recently released a amazingly cheap ski trip package, that is ONLY 980 yen per person including the transportation (bus) from Tokyo to the mountain plus one day lift pass !!
The details are…
Available on December 23 (Fri), 24 (Sat), 25 (Sun), 26 (Mon) and 27 (Tue)
Price 980 yen per person on Dec 26 or 27 / 1,980 yen on Dec 23,24 or 25
Including a bus transportation from Shinjuku or Tokyo to Inawashiro ski resort (http:www.goinawashiro.com)
Bus depart at Shinjuku 6:45 a.m. or Tokyo sta. 6:45 a.m. or Ikebukuro 7:30 a.m. and be arrived at Inawashiro 11:15 a.m.
/ ski or snowboard one day /
Bus depart from Inawashiro at 5:45 p.m. and be arrived at Shinjuku at 9:50 p.m.
There are some other plans to go different destination as well. Please ask us the details.
Oops! One thing, we would like to mention ….. Don’t forget joining our cycling tour on the next day or later when you come back to Tokyo 
