| At Mr. Kato's hotel you rel- ax in one of the finest hot springs in central Japan, dine off the best loeal delica- cies and sleep in the calm of a rustic room as a river rush- es whispering by. Then you pay him what you think it was worth. Hironori Kato is a brave man. In a land where there is no tipping, no bargaining, ev- erything has a set price and good service is considered the eustomer's right, he has chosen to rely on peoples' sense of fair play for his livelihood. | Such a floating price sys- tem is rare enough outside Japan, although some res- taurants and hotels in Eu- rope and the United States run their business in the same way. Inside Japan it flies against standard Japanese behavior. Japanese tourists, as any foreign taxi driver who has cheated them will tell you, are notoriously shy when it comes to haggling. They pay what they are asked. Similarly, they are dis- turbed when they are not asked to pay anything. | |||
| It doesn't always pay. "The top price
one guest gave me for a night and two meals
was \23,000 ($165). The worst guest gave
\100 (70 cents), and he asked for a receipt,"said
the landlord of Hazu spa. "I started this system about five years ago. People said then that in five years. I would go bankrupt. Well, here I am," he said. There are few Japanese hot spring spas, the tradition- al centers to wash away the world's cares and soak up some natural energy, that charge less than \10,000 ($70) |
―Aich Prefecture Hotel ― You Pay What You Think It's Worth |
per night. The best "At first everyone was con- fused. There were two com- pletely different reactions. Some people thought I must be supremely confident and the hotel a heaven on earth. Others thought the hotel must be very spartan if I was asking whatever they want- ed to pay," said Kato. "Sometimes I fear to im- pose this system on people hecause it frightens them. So far I have tried not to give any hint as to what they should pay. But in some cases they find it so confus- ing they get upset and I have to give a hint," he said. | ||
| ones cost three, or four times as much. Hazu Inn sits amidst the mountains in the small vil- lage of Yuya, in Aichi Pre- fecture. Inside, the visitor steps into an earlier Japan. Heavy wooden beams frame the rooms, rush mats welcome the feet, and paper windows let in a soft light. Outside, a natural volcanic spring feeds an open air hot bath beside a cold river. The hot spring was suppos- edly discovered 1,200 years ago by a wandering sage, who found that it gave him the power to fly. These days, however, the closest you might get to flying is if you jump into the steaming hot water too fast. | Most of his guests are now regulars and
pay reasonable rates. A glance though his
re- cent receipts, however, shows many people
still pay- ing as little as \2,000 each,
not much more than the price of a cheap lunch
in Tokyo. So why does he do it? "I
don't really know myself but I started to
think such an idea could succeed and then
suddenly I got the confidence that it would
succeed," said Kato, who inherited the
hotel from his father. -Reuter  |
|||
