With Hokusai style postcard views to the iconic Mt Yotei, 15 metres of dry-Siberian-influenced snow a season and just two hours from Sapporo’s Chitose airport in Hokkaido, it was only a matter of time before the now famous Niseko was “discovered” on a world stage.
Those foreigners who originally ventured to this farming-village-with-a-ski resort in the post Sapporo Winter Olympics fever in the 70s and the Japan boom of the 80s came for the metres and metres of super dry snow that Hokkaido was (and is) known for. What they discovered was an authentic Japanese agricultural region with a handful of local owned bars, no crowds and untracked snow for days. In other words, skiing and snowboarding heaven.
By the time Japan’s early nineties economic crash came round four separate resorts existed on the one mountain, Grand Hirafu (originally Niseko Kogen Kanko 1961), Annapuri (1972), Higashiyama (1982 later renamed Niseko Village) and Hanazono (1992).
While some wanted to keep the now struggling powder mecca of Niseko for themselves and tell no-one, others saw growth opportunity. Australian smart entrepreneurs Peter Murphy (SkiJapan.com) and Dale and Glenn Goulding (Deep Powder Tours) started bringing Aussie snow travellers in the nineties in search of cheap lift passes, mega snowfalls and Japanese culture.
They got all three and then some.
Niseko, three syllables that have divided old school versus new school skiers and boarders for decades.
As word got out, cheap real estate got snapped up, and the Australian invasion settled into the early 2000s. Many may have travelled with respect, but the reputation of some badly behaved Aussie skiers on budget holidays made headlines and the town of Niseko became known as “Bali with a Rising Sun.” Much to the chagrin of both the reserved Japanese locals and the quieter powder achievers drawn to the serenity of Japan snow life.
Soon, more savvy Aussies dollars riding the wave of change invested in Niseko, drawn to what could be. Rhythm Japan, first set up in Niseko in 2005 by Cooma locals Mick Klima and Matt Hampton, cemented themselves as the premier retail outlet for skiers and snowboarders, opening seven stores across Hokkaido and Honshu from rentals to high-end retail over a seven year period. The American outdoor retail brand evo would eventually acquire Rhythm Japan 17 years later.
With direct Qantas flights from Cairns in Australia to Sapporo in 2004, two Australian developers also saw tourism opportunity. Hotham’s former Managing Director the late Colin Hackworth and Minter Ellison lawyer Roger Donazzan, (husband of Qantas chairperson-at-the-time Margaret Jackson) partnered together to purchase Niseko’s Hanazono lift company and land. They exchanged keys with a ten year $300m investment plan for an upscale property development boasting 8000 beds and a new name, Nihon Harmony Resorts.
Three years later the duo sold to Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li’s Pacific Century Premium Developments company, and Qantas soon stopped flying from Cairns. Hackworth stayed on as a director then later became President of Nihon Harmony Resorts, and with Li’s name at the helm the option to attract both cashed up ex-pats and locals from Hong Kong and Shanghai also brought a demand for more luxury attractions.
Enter Niseko’s boujee era
Li wasn’t the only billionaire to invest in the area, on the other side of the mountain Niseko Village ski resort was bought by Malaysian billionaire Yeoh ti Lang’s YTL Hotels and Properties in 2010. The deal included the Hilton, Green Leaf Hotel, golf courses and lift infrastructure.
By 2014 YTL had refurbed the 200 room Green Leaf with New-York based firm Champalimaud Design. Then, in 2017, the company launched the Kasara luxury townhouses followed by the all-suite Hinode Hills in 2019. At the height of the pandemic the ultra-exclusive Higashiyama Niseko Village by Ritz Carlton Reserve (the first and only Reserve label in Japan) opened in late 2020.
Meanwhile Richard Li’s ultra exclusive Park Hyatt in Hanazono, complete with Pierre Hermis Paris high teas, also opened during the pandemic and more recently hosted the famed Louis Vuitton Yurt and gondola wrap. As you do.
It’s no wonder Niseko was now being referred to as the Aspen of the East.
Then when Singapore top 50 rich lister Simon Cheong’s SC Global decided to branch into hotel development, guess where he chose? Niseko.
His Setsu hotel opened in late 2022 and has recently secured a Michelin Key, one of seven awarded to hotels in the ski resort this year with the first Michelin Key guide in Japan.
All this luxuy hotel development isn’t stopping any time soon, either.
Niseko is now hot hotel property for the top end of accommodation town. Hong Kong based Rosewood Hotel Group will open a New World La Plume Resort this coming season and Japan’s Hoshino Resorts will open the doors on HOSHINOYA Hütte on the top of Hirafu with a roof top onsen overlooking Mt Yotei by 2028.
Add IHG’s Six Senses, Nikko Style and Marriott’s millennial Moxy brand plus the crème de la crème, the highly coveted Aman Resorts all scheduled for openings over the next three years.
And that doesn’t even include the villa scene where residences can go for up to $30,000 a night – what cost-of-living-crisis…
Do you even lift?
The “new” Niseko skier and boarder may come for the hotel names and Michelin dining scene making its mark since the 2013 Hokkaido guide was launched but the core skier and boarder, that hasn’t already fled to other parts of the island, still heads here for the mega snow offerings both within the 2800 acres of resort terrain and the plethora of backcountry past the gates.
With all these new beds, the famed single pizza chairs of Japan are no longer going to cut it. Fast lift systems are crucial in a fast growing resort originally known for no lift lines and untracked powder.
Niseko has had more lift upgrades than many in Japan. In the last fifteen years alone chairs have been upgraded to gondolas or installed with cushions and hoods for wild weather, two seaters have become four seaters and four seaters have become 10 seaters.
This coming season the much anticipated 10 person gondola replacing the 38 year old Center Four at Grand Hirafu will open with the capacity to carry 1000 more people per hour than before and the King Quad Lift #3 will be replaced with a new 6 seater high speed come 2025 (able to carry 600 more per hour).
There’s terrain expansion on the horizon too, Hanazono, thanks to the late Hackworth, has big plans to develop the neighbouring Weiss mountain, currently used for cat skiing, with three lifts and a connecting gondola to Niseko.
If you got in on the ground property floor of Niseko then you’ll already be laughing. Though your bank manager will be laughing more as there’s even more growth on the market thanks to the shinkansen bullet train set to launch in 2030 that will cut Sapporo to Kutchan (Niseko) travel time from 2 hours to 25 minutes. Skiers will even be able to take a 4.5 hour bullet train from Tokyo to Kutchan, no need for connecting flights and buses.
Like it, loved it, loathe it or fled it, Nis Vegas has seriously come of global snow tourism age.
This article first appeared in The Japan Issue, with added “Letter to Niseko” from local Darren Teasdale. Read full feature via link below.
