This article includes a few paragraphs about a ryokan in Kurokawa that has taken measures to increase it’s foreign clientele.
===start quote=== During the symposium, the proprietor of a family-run ryokan that recently started receiving more visitors from foreign countries discussed the efforts they made to attract them. Nozomu Shiga, president of Ryokan Wakaba at the Kurokawa Onsen spa resort in Kumamoto Prefecture, decided last year that his ryokan would take steps to bring in more visitors from overseas. In 2012, foreign guests accounted for only several per cent of all his guests each month. But Shiga, 41, said this year they sometimes exceed 20 per cent per month, partly due to him and his staff taking English lessons. They also produced menus, inn guides and Kurokawa Onsen resort maps in English, and revamped the facility’s English website and booking procedures. Shiga found that these measures did not cost as much as he expected. “What we should really do first is resolve to bring in more visitors from overseas,” he remarked at the symposium. ===end quote===
http://news.asiaone.com/news/relax/ryokan-inns-continue-draw-foreigners-japan
