Over the past 30 years, the population of Shiraoi Town, Hokkaido, Japan, has decreased by approximately 6,000 people. In addition, about half of the population is aged 65 or older. In such a depopulated town, there is a unique lodging facility that attracts young people and foreigners. It is "haku," a hostel and café-bar.

It is scary to take a risk and try something new," says the owner, Kikuchi.

That is what Tatsunori Kikuchi, the owner of haku, says. Kikuchi, who originally worked in consulting in the U.S. and Tokyo, opened haku in Shiraoi-cho in 2019.

Attracting "an unprecedented clientele

It was December, when the outside temperature was -2 degrees Celsius and felt cold on the skin. Even though it was a weekday, half of the seats in haku's café space were occupied by lunch customers. The people enjoying conversation were mainly couples and friends in their 20s to 40s.

As the lunch crowd settled down, a foreign man and woman walked from the hostel at the back of the café space and looked around. It was hard to believe that this was a small town in Hokkaido, with three people chatting and laughing in English.

According to Shiraoi Town's statistics, more than 20 new stores have opened in the town in the five years from 2015 to 2020, and Chuo-dori Street, where haku is located, has many stores open for business and a lot of traffic.

The Chuo-dori Avenue where haku is located also has many shops open for business, and the street is busy with cars. "It used to look more desolate," says Kikuchi, "and many stores were shuttered. The increase in the number of stores, on the other hand, is not solely the result of haku, but also of the national facility "Upopoi (symbolic space for ethnic coexistence)," which was built in 2020 to serve as a base for the revival and development of Ainu culture, and Hoshino Resort's "Kai Poroto" spa facility, which opened in the same year as the haku. One reason is that Shiraoi itself is now attracting a lot of attention.

However, haku is attracting two new types of visitors who have never visited Shiraoi Town before.

One is young people in their 20s and 30s who come from "outside" the town. 8 out of 10 staff members working at haku are in this age group, and another 8 out of 10 are either immigrants from outside the town or people who commute from outside the town to work at haku.

There have been cases where people who stayed at haku as guests in the past have asked to work here, and some have moved to Shiraoi Town and settled down. The owners of "Ale's Pizza," a pizza specialty restaurant about a 10-minute drive from haku, and a café that just opened within walking distance from haku, opened their own restaurants after working at haku.

Several of the staff members are women who moved to Shiraoi Town for their spouses' work and are now working there part-time. When we asked one of them, "Why did you decide to work at haku? She replied, "I used to work in the tourism industry,

When I asked one of the women, "I used to work in the tourism industry, but at the time I couldn't find a good part-time job around here, so when I saw that haku was looking for staff, I thought it would be a good opportunity.

haku is also creating jobs for women who want to work for a little while.