Japanese just love their hot spas. But with many heading off to these onsen (myself included) for a summer break, a scandal has bubbled up which threatens to spoil people's enjoyment. It first erupted a few weeks ago at the Shirahone hot spa in Azumi, central Japan. One of the most popular hot spas, visited by 400,000 people each year, it is known for its calcium-rich hot water that turns a milky colour when exposed to the air.
However, staff at one 10-year-old inn, it was revealed, have been adding commercially manufactured bath powder to the spa water for seven years, after it lost its whiteness when the origin and temperature of the water changed.
But that was not just an isolated incident. Staff at another renowned Japanese-style inn at Isawa hot spa, near Mount Fuji, admitted that they had lied for a long time about the quality of their hot spa water, and had been filling the bathtubs with heated tap water since the mid-1980s. The same has been happening at two inns at Ikaho, another famous spot in central Japan.
As a result, the offenders have seen people cancel their reservations in droves. According to Tomio Hirano, head of the Association for Preserving Onsen Inns, just a 'few per cent' of facilities use only original hot spa water. 'Many onsen managers dilute it, recycle it, or lie in announcements to tourists,' he said. He advocates the issuing of honest and detailed information about every bathing facility. Otherwise, he says, 'Japanese onsen will lose customers' trust and no one will be willing to visit one'.
For millions of hot spa loving Japanese, onsen is a traditional - and natural - source of revitalising one's whole being. Many people, particularly stressed urban workers, like to soak in a spacious natural bath at a traditional Japanese inn, in a remote village, or at outdoor hot springs, day and night, in all seasons.
Japan must not allow this 'hot spa fraud' to continue. The country has about 6,400 natural hot springs, which foster 15,000 onsen inns, hotels and other facilities. One-half of these have opened in the past decade amid the boom.
