--- title: Japan Takes Its Onsen Culture Campaign To A World Summit date: 2026-09-14T09:30:00+09:00 author: Chris Pickering canonical_url: "https://uchijapan.com/news/japan-onsen-culture-world-summit-unesco" section: News --- [Japan](https://uchijapan.com/news/japan)# Japan Takes Its Onsen Culture Campaign To A World Summit Sep 14, 2026 - [ ](mailto:?subject=Japan%20Takes%20Its%20Onsen%20Culture%20Campaign%20To%20A%20World%20Summit%20on%20Uchi&body=https%3A%2F%2Fuchijapan.com%2Fnews%2Fjapan-onsen-culture-world-summit-unesco "Share by Email") - [ ](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fuchijapan.com%2Fnews%2Fjapan-onsen-culture-world-summit-unesco&title=Japan%20Takes%20Its%20Onsen%20Culture%20Campaign%20To%20A%20World%20Summit&description=Japan%E2%80%99s%20first%20Onsen%20Culture%20World%20Summit%20supports%20a%20possible%20UNESCO%20listing%20in%202030%2C%20celebrating%20the%20traditions%20behind%20its%20hot%20spring%20towns.&caption=Uchi) ![Kusatsu Yumomi Gunma 02](https://d1g90p0r985xbs.cloudfront.net/general/_480x270_crop_center-center_60_line/436509/Kusatsu_Yumomi_Gunma_02.jpg)A summit in Tottori has put Japan’s hot spring traditions in focus, from the communal bathhouses of Nozawa Onsen to the water-cooling rituals of Kusatsu. Japan’s campaign to secure UNESCO recognition for its onsen culture brought governors, researchers and tourism representatives together in Tottori Prefecture on 7 September, at the country’s first Onsen Culture World Summit. Held in Yurihama, the gathering put a familiar holiday experience into a wider context, asking how the customs surrounding hot springs can be recognised and passed on to future generations. According to the travel industry newspaper Ryoko Shimbun, around 450 people attended the summit at Hawaii Aloha Hall. The event was organised by the governors’ association supporting the campaign, with lectures and discussion about Japanese and international bathing culture. Tottori Prefecture’s programme also included a role for Mari Yamazaki, the creator of the manga Thermae Romae, whose work has introduced many readers to the pleasures and peculiarities of public bathing. The campaign is working towards possible inscription in 2030, although UNESCO recognition has yet to be granted. Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs selected onsen culture and kagura, the traditional performing art, as new nomination candidates in November 2025, with kagura taking priority in the assessment order. Its published timetable envisages consideration of onsen culture in late 2030. The nomination process still has several years to run, with the eventual decision resting with UNESCO. The proposed recognition concerns intangible cultural heritage, the UNESCO category for living practices and knowledge passed between people. In the case of onsen, that allows attention to move beyond the appearance of a bathhouse to the customs that make it part of a community. A visitor may remember the steam rising from an outdoor pool, but there is also a less visible story about who maintains the bath, how the water is used and what one generation teaches the next about sharing it. Nozawa Onsen offers a particularly clear example for readers who know Japan through its mountain resorts. Its tourism association describes the village’s thirteen public bathhouses as communal property, cared for through the local yu-nakama system since the Edo period. The baths have individual identities, from the prominent Oyu building in the centre to smaller facilities tucked into residential streets. Visiting several of them is a way of learning the village through places that continue to be looked after by the people who live there. There are details that a brief ski holiday can easily miss. The association’s guide describes washing facilities still used by local bath groups at Asagama-no-Yu, and egg-cooking facilities beside several bathhouses. These uses show how hot water has been woven into daily life, extending its role beyond the moment a visitor steps into a tub. A return visit with time to explore the lanes can reveal connections between the village and its water that remain largely invisible from the ski lifts. Kusatsu presents another expression of that relationship through yumomi, the practice of working hot spring water with long wooden boards. The technique cools the water without diluting it with cold water, and its accompanying performance is one of the town’s best-known cultural experiences. For an international visitor, watching the boards move through the water makes an otherwise unfamiliar piece of bathing knowledge easy to understand, while also showing how a practical method can acquire music, rhythm and a public life of its own. These examples help explain why UNESCO’s emphasis on living heritage is relevant to a modern resort town. Its definition allows traditions to evolve as people continue to practise them, with the community playing a central role in recognising their value. An onsen town can welcome new residents and visitors while retaining the local knowledge that makes its baths distinctive. The useful question is how that knowledge continues to be shared, especially when many guests arrive with little familiarity with communal bathing. For Uchi readers considering longer stays in Japan, this is an appealing reason to spend time in an onsen destination outside a tightly planned holiday. Learning the local bathing routine, finding a favourite bathhouse and understanding the neighbourhood around it can become part of the pleasure of returning. Our view is that the summit offers a good prompt to look more closely at those everyday experiences, because the character of an onsen town is often found in the relationships and customs that surround its water. [ Explore Nozawa Onsen ](https://uchijapan.com/resorts/nozawa-onsen)