From Edo Post Towns to Airbnb: A Short History of Japan’s Lodging System
When people think of accommodations in Japan today, words like ryokan, minshuku, and even Airbnb come to mind. Many of these lodging traditions trace their roots back hundreds of years to the Edo period, when the Tokugawa shogunate codified a nationwide accommodation system. The journey from honjin and hatago to minpaku and Airbnb reveals a lot about how Japanese travel culture has both changed and kept a sense of continuity.
The Edo Period: Class-Based Lodgings
In the 17th century, the shogunate systematized travel along the Five Highways (Gokaidō) with official post towns called shukuba. These towns provided food, lodging, and horses for travelers of every rank. Lodgings were stratified by social class:
- Honjin (本陣): Reserved for daimyo and top officials.
- Waki-honjin (脇本陣): Secondary inns for lower-ranking officials
- Hatago (旅籠): Inns for ordinary travelers and merchants.
- Kichin-yado (木賃宿): Budget lodgings where guests cooked their own food.
Daimyo (feudal lords) were required to travel to Edo regularly. By regulating travel, the shogunate could monitor movement and maintain order. This political tool created the foundation of Japan’s hospitality culture.
Meiji and Postwar: Ryokan and Minshuku
With modernization, the old hatago for ordinary travelers evolved into ryokan (旅館), inns offering tatami rooms, futon bedding, and set meals. Many onsen towns here in the Izu Peninsula still carry on this tradition today.
In the postwar years, the minshuku (民宿) appeared as smaller, family-run alternatives. Minshuku were tied to local livelihoods. Fishing and farming families supplemented their income by hosting travelers. Minshuku became especially common in coastal and mountain villages, offering home-cooked meals and a family-like atmosphere.
The Pension Wave in Resort Areas
While minshuku demand held in rural areas, the 1960s and 70s brought a new kind of lodging to places like Izu Kōgen on the Izu’s east coast. Here, urban developers marketed the region as a modern resort. Land plots were sold to city-dwellers, many of whom built pensions (ペンション), European-inspired lodgings with beds instead of futons, chalet-style dining rooms, and Western-style meals.
This was more enticing to the modern domestic tourist than the old-fashioned minshuku, which by then were already starting to decline. In East Izu, this “international” branding of pensions was part of the appeal. By contrast, West Izu’s slower development and traditional fishing villages allowed minshuku to survive, serving fresh seafood and offering a more authentic feel.
New Branding: The “-haku” Family
In the 2010s, as inbound tourism boomed, Japan’s government promoted a new category of lodging terms under the suffix -haku (泊, stay):
Minpaku (民泊): Private home lodging, often short-term rentals and Airbnb-style stays.
Nōhaku (農泊): Farm stays, where visitors experience agriculture and rural culture.
Terahaku (寺泊): Temple stays, a modern rebranding of the older word shukubō.
These terms were designed as easy, parallel categories that could be marketed internationally and used to support rural revitalization.
Minpaku and Airbnb
The word minpaku has been used informally for some time, but it took on a codified legal meaning in 2018 with the Private Lodging Business Act, which regulated short-term rentals. This was in response to the Airbnb phenomenon.
Legally, the distinction is subtle but important:
Minshuku = traditional, family-run inns, licensed under hotel laws.
Minpaku = private homes or apartments, often managed by non-professionals, under a separate law.
Both words mean “people’s lodging,” but they represent very different eras of travel.
Why “Ryokan” Endures
Unlike minshuku and pension, which rise and fall with social and economic trends, the word ryokan has come to carry a sense of authenticity and even prestige. From humble hot-spring inns to the famed Asaba Ryokan in Shuzenji, ryokan remain central to Japan’s image of hospitality.
The word has never needed rebranding: for domestic travelers it suggests a connection to the Edo past, while for international visitors it evokes the quintessential Japanese experience. In this sense, ryokan bridges old and new in a way other lodging terms have not.
Sidebar:
Pensions and the Image of East Izu
When the Izukyū Railway opened along Izu’s east coast in the 1960s, Izu was marketed as a modern, cosmopolitan resort. The pension boom fit perfectly with this image. They offered Western-style meals, beds, and European charm at a time when that felt novel and aspirational to domestic tourists.
By contrast, Izu’s west coast retains more of the minshuku tradition. While modern accommodations continue to grow, one can still find plenty of minshuku in small fishing villages like Kumoni and Ishibu.
Today, pensions still exist in places like Izu Kōgen. However, many are disappearing or being replaced by Airbnb-style minpaku, as the trend of “modern” or “international” branding continues.
Meanwhile, the term ryokan survives unchanged, carrying authenticity and prestige from seaside inns to world-class properties like Asaba, Zagyosoh, and Ochiairo.
A Living Tradition
What’s striking is not just how much Japan’s lodging system has changed, but how much it has stayed the same. The Edo-period idea of matching accommodations to social roles and purposes has evolved into a spectrum: luxury hotels as modern honjin, ryokan as refined hatago, minshuku as homely kichin-yado, and minpaku as today’s response to digital travel trends.
Travelers in Izu can still experience these layers of history — whether soaking in an onsen ryokan, enjoying a family meal at a minshuku, or booking a pension or minpaku on the east coast. Each reflects a chapter in the story of Japanese travel.
