Hyoe Koyokaku

Arima's big all-rounder: a 126-room inn with three bath houses of rust-red kinsen, a live-cooking wagyu buffet or charcoal-grill private rooms, and free matcha and drinks — but the baths are partly recirculated, it's a maze, and tattoos are refused

Hyoe Koyokaku claims some 700 years of history in Arima, the hot spring Toyotomi Hideyoshi loved, and today it's one of the town's largest inns: 126 rooms across four linked wings, with every large bath on the ninth floor. The water is Arima's famous kinsen — an iron-rich, very salty sodium chloride spring at 83.5°C — but the inn's own analysis panel shows it isn't fully free-flowing: no water is added and nothing is filtered, but it's heated through a heat exchanger, part-recirculated and disinfected. There are three bath houses (two that swap daily, with kinsen indoor and open-air tubs, jacuzzi and sauna, and a garden-style third), plus two paid private kinsen baths. Japanese guests rate it 4.6 across 3,678 reviews on one major site, 4.57 across 2,630 on another and 4.59 across 232 on a third, with baths the top category everywhere. Dinner is chosen at booking: kaiseki in your room or the Mokuren dining room, a charcoal-grill course in private rooms, or a buffet of about 50 dishes whose live-cooked wagyu steak and sushi win steady praise; Kobe-area Rokkō wagyu is standard and Kobe beef an extra. Extras — free drinks at the bath, matcha and sweets in the morning, a geiko or maiko tea service — impress families. The recurring complaints: dated rooms, a confusing layout, weak Wi-Fi, stretched or uneven service when groups are in, and a buffet some found ordinary. Most 2026 guests paid about ¥21,000–30,000+ per person with two meals.