Profile
• Kumahachi Aburaya was born to a rice wholesaler in Uwajima, Ehime Prefecture, in 1863. From a young age, he was known to be a hard worker.
• Aburaya went to Osaka at the age of 30 and made an enormous fortune speculating in the rice market. His nickname was "General Aburaya."
• He failed in the speculation and lost all his wealth at the age of 34. He then went to the United States in the smelly and sultry bowels of a ship.
• Aburaya traveled for three years from Canada to Mexico and returned to Japan when he was 38. He was christened while he was in the United States.
• Aburaya came to Beppu when he was 46 and started running a hotel. He made it into a first-rate hotel which received wealthy people from around the world.
• He promoted large-scale advertising projects like the ones he saw in the United States. He passed out leaflets from an airplane flying around Osaka and put up poles saying
"The Best of Japan: Mt. Fuji, Seto Inland Sea, and Beppu Hot Springs"
on Mt. Fuji. He put unique ideas into practice one after another to publicize Beppu.
• Aburaya was the first in Japan to introduce tour buses with female guides, and the hot spring "Hell Tour" gained explosive popularity.
• Many interesting people wanting to do whatever they could to develop tourism in Beppu came to join Aburaya. All these people liked children, so they formed "Otogi Club," or fairy club, to provide children with opportunities to enjoy fairy stories, songs, and other music performances. At Christmas, a Santa Claus even appeared from a seaplane to surprise the children. Children in the Otogi Club called Aburava
"Shiny Uncle" because of his bald head.
• Aburaya also developed Yufuin into a hot spring resort. He thought up a tourism plan which covered all areas of Kyushu connecting Beppu, Yufuin, Kuju Highland, Handa Plateau, Aso, and Nagasaki with one route.
• In1935, Kumahachi Aburaya died in Beppu at the age of 73. His dream to make this place into a world-renowned tourist resort is still alive everywhere in the town of
Верри.