Togo Heihachiro, fleet admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, dealt a huge blow to the Russian armed forces when he sent the czar's Baltic Fleet to the bottom of the Tsushima Strait in May 1905. It was a stunning victory for Japan in the Russo-Japanese war: A bamboo land had vanquished a Western power. The world sat up and took note. Intrigued by the new David, people wanted to visit Japan.
But Japan was not quite ready to receive foreign visitors -- its navy was more modern than its lodgings. Hostelries in those days were designed for overnight wayfarers shod in clogs rather than sea arrivals burdened with trunks. So the government called together the nation's principal innkeepers and expressed an urgent need for hotels to accommodate foreign visitors.
Two men heeded the call. Kihachiro Okura founded the Okura Hotel in Tokyo, and Nihei Nishimura the Miyako Hotel in Kyoto. Nara City, too, was in need of a hotel to accommodate an anticipated influx of foreign tourists who would go there by way of the 35-km rail line from Kyoto.