Kyoto’s Decade of New Hotels, and How to Choose Between Them

Ten years ago, the best place to stay in Kyoto was a ryokan. The city had a handful of famous inns, some of them three centuries old, a few large Japanese hotels, and almost nothing from the international luxury groups. That has changed completely. Between 2016 and 2026 more than a dozen ambitious hotels have opened, and Kyoto now has a stronger collection of new hotels than any other city of its size in Asia. This is how it happened, and how to choose.

2016: the garden

Four Seasons Hotel Kyoto opened in Higashiyama around an 800-year-old pond garden. It set the pattern for much that followed: find a site with a history and build around what is there.

2019: the forest and the hill

Two hotels opened within days of each other. Aman Kyoto placed 26 rooms in a forest garden near Kinkaku-ji, far from the centre. Park Hyatt Kyoto was built on the slope beside Kodai-ji, together with a ryotei founded in 1877. They remain the two reference points: seclusion, or the heart of the temple district.

2020: downtown

Ace Hotel Kyoto opened in a 1926 telephone exchange extended by Kengo Kuma, and brought a younger, design-led clientele to the commercial centre. Hotel The Mitsui Kyoto opened opposite Nijo Castle on the site of the Mitsui family residence, with a hot spring of its own. The same year, the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art reopened after renovation.

2024: wellness

Six Senses Kyoto opened in April with bath houses and a programme built around well-being, and Banyan Tree Higashiyama Kyoto followed in August with a natural onsen and a Noh stage. Both showed how far the hot-spring bath, once the preserve of the ryokan, had been absorbed by the international hotel.

2026: the geiko districts

In March, two hotels opened inside the city’s geiko quarters, each in exchange for the restoration of a building the district wanted to keep. The Imperial Hotel, Kyoto took over Yasaka Kaikan in Gion. Capella Kyoto, by Kengo Kuma, was built on a former school in Miyagawa-cho beside a restored theatre. Still to come is Songtei Kyoto, which will join Shangri-La’s Signatures collection opposite Nijo Castle.

How to choose

By location first. Higashiyama, where Park Hyatt, Four Seasons, Six Senses and Banyan Tree are found, puts the great temples on the doorstep and suffers the crowds by day. The Nijo Castle area is central, calm and practical. Gion and Miyagawa-cho are for those who want to be in the old entertainment quarters in the evening. Aman is a retreat, and guests there go into the city by car.

Then by temperament. Aman and Park Hyatt are the quietest. The Mitsui and Banyan Tree are for bathers. Ace is the least formal. Capella and the Imperial are the newest and, for now, the hardest to book.

And do not forget the ryokan. The best of them still offer something no hotel does. One sensible plan is to spend two nights in each. Kyoto also attracts events that take advantage of all this, such as Dior’s show at Tō-ji in 2025 and Noma’s residencies at the Ace.