Yoshiharu Hoshino describes his experience taking over the reins of his century-old family business in 1991 as a "hard landing."
The fourth-generation hotelier and chief executive officer of Hoshino Resorts Inc., one of Japan’s largest and most well-known operators of luxury hotels and ryokan (traditional inns), inherited his family-run hot spring inn in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, as the nation was reeling from a tectonic economic shift triggered by the collapse of the bubble economy.
"During my father's time, workers were easy to hire, it was a matter of offering a decent salary," Hoshino said during a recent interview with The Japan Times.