Advertisement
Advertisement
Asia travel
Get more with myNEWS
A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you
Learn more
A woman bathes in a public bath at Hoshinoya Guguan, a hot-spring, or onsen, hotel, in Taiwan. Photo: Hoshino Resorts

First Japanese hot-spring hotel in Taiwan gives former tourist town a second lease of life

  • Many associate hot-spring, or onsen, hotels only with Japan, but there are more than 100 in Taiwan, which vary in quality from basic to luxurious
  • Hoshinoya Guguan, the first overseas hot-spring hotel from Japanese group Hoshino Resorts, attracts visitors to a sleepy town that was popular in the 1970s
Asia travel

A crisp winter breeze and soft, dappled sunlight caress me as I follow a meandering, flower-lined footpath, passing old Formosan gum trees and Chinese cypresses.

Under a tall Taiwanese fir, someone sits on a stone bench, contemplating a pond dotted with water lilies. An elderly couple holding hands pauses near a babbling brook to admire some indigenous plants.

Milling around this beautifully landscaped garden dressed alike in thick, woven, dark blue cotton two-piece sets that resemble pyjamas, we all look like convalescents at an upmarket sanatorium. Or guests at a Japanese ryokan, traditional inns that provide guests with loungewear that can be worn almost everywhere at the property, even to the restaurant or the communal bathhouse.

This is a ryokan. But it is not in Japan.

The gardens at Hoshinoya Guguan. Photo: Mavis Teo

Opened in Taiwan in 2019, Hoshinoya Guguan is Japanese hotel group Hoshino Resorts’ first overseas hot-spring, or onsen, hotel.

At the opening of the new-build property, Hoshino Resorts CEO Yoshiharu Hoshino told a Japanese publication that he had been surprised when he visited Guguan at the invitation of steel magnate Lin Meng-bi, the hotel’s local owner.

Hoshino found the town’s sodium-bicarbonate-rich waters to be of a similar quality to those he was used to in Japan.

‘Most dangerous wonder of the world’ and more things tourists don’t get told

Taiwan sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire and has more than 400 geothermal sources – one of the highest concentrations in the world. Many of these were discovered by the Japanese, who occupied the island for 50 years after the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95).

The occupiers developed hot-spring bathing facilities in many towns, starting with Beitou, a mountainous district that is now part of Taipei and where the waters contain sulphur, which is said to soothe and improve common skin ailments.

There are more than 100 hot-spring hotels in Taiwan, which vary in quality from basic to luxurious.

Hoshinoya Guguan is located on a plateau 800m above sea level. Photo: Hoshino Resorts

For a hot-spring resort experience that rivals those found in Japan, look north, where you’ll find the island’s only two members of the Relais & Châteaux luxury hotel association, both of which are hot-spring hotels: Villa 32, in Beitou, and Volando Urai, in Wulai, on the outskirts of the capital.

Taiwan’s best onsen hotels offer experiences that blend Japanese bathing traditions with local wellness concepts and cuisine. Other stand-outs include The Gaia, a 48-room hotel in Beitou, and Fleur de Chine, a 211-room hotel that takes advantage of the sodium-bicarbonate-rich waters of Sun Moon Lake.

Guguan is in central Taiwan, in Heping district, 90 minutes from Taichung by car. The area is home to several aboriginal tribes, particularly the Atayal, whose history and crafts can be appreciated on tours run by the Hoshinoya Guguan.

Guguan’s main street. Photo: Mavis Teo

The town is set in a valley carved out by the Dajia River, in the foothills of Xueshan (Snow Mountain). Taiwan’s second-highest mountain, Xueshan is the source of the water that flows under the earth’s crust and up into Guguan’s hot-spring resorts.

That water also heats the indoor and outdoor pools at the Hoshinoya Guguan, as well as the granite tubs in its 49 suites, each of which has a floor-to-ceiling window that looks out onto forested Bojinjiashan mountain.

The hotel opened in the summer of 2019 – off-peak season for an onsen hotel. Over the winter that followed, it filled with local bookings as countries began to close off their borders in an attempt to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Every room at Hoshinoya Guguan comes with a private onsen tub. Photo: Hoshino Resorts

Since Taiwan reopened, in November 2022, guests from Japan and elsewhere who are familiar with the Hoshinoya brand have started to discover this Taiwanese outpost. And with the arrival of an international brand, Taiwan’s sophisticated onsen hotel scene has finally begun to be noticed globally.

Furthermore, Guguan, a sleepy, dusty town that had fallen off the radar of even most Taiwanese – with the exception of retiree day trippers and hikers who come to tackle the Seven Heroes, a septet of nearby peaks that range in height from 1,305 to 2,366 metres (4,281 feet to 7,762 feet) – has been given a second lease of life.

During its heyday, in the 1970s, Guguan thrived as a hot-springs resort town. Business remained strong until central Taiwan was devastated by the 1999 Jiji earthquake, which registered 7.3 on the Richter scale and, claiming 2,415 lives, was the island’s second deadliest on record.

Most of the rooms at Hoshinoya Guguan are in a maisonette format. Photo: Hoshino Resorts

In 2004, Typhoon Mindulle brought with it extensive flooding that destroyed some of the surviving infrastructure in Guguan.

Although there are eight licensed hot-spring hotels still in operation in the town, most have faded paintwork, crumbling facades and even broken windows.

But the opening of Hoshinoya Guguan has helped revive one or two of the better-maintained onsen properties, such as the Guguan Mingzhi Hot Spring Hotel and the Dragon Valley Hotel, which have become beneficiaries of the new-found attention and are proving popular with guests who cannot afford a stay at the new resort.

The writer was hosted by Hoshinoya Guguan.

1