IGA, Mie >> The tourist association of Iga, a city known for its historical ties with ninja, has established a program that brings the ninja experience to tourists.

The Iga-Ueno Tourist Association, in Mie prefecture, has decorated rooms with replica items from the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum, which it also runs. The Ninpak program — a play on the words “ninja” and “minpaku” (private lodging, similar to Airbnb lodging) — displays shuriken (throwing stars) and other ninja tools on room walls.

Ninpak is jointly operated by the tourist association and Fujiya Co., a Kyoto-based business that specializes in designing and producing display projects. The company had earlier been charged with refurbishing the museum. Ninpak was launched in December 2021, but due to the pandemic it was months before the first hotel signed on to participate.

That was Iga Ueno City Hotel, which already had three ninja rooms.

In 2015 the hotel designated three ninja rooms. The floors are partially covered with tatami, and the rooms are outfitted with fun features such as wallpaper with ninja silhouettes and makimono (horizontal, rolled hand scrolls) hidden under the floors. The Ninpak program has boosted the ninja embellishments.

In each room, elaborate replicas of ninja tools, made according to historical ninja writings, are exhibited in wall showcases. The tools vary from room to room. Firearms are on display in a fourth-floor room; on the sixth floor, the ninja room features break-in tools, such as a rope with a grappling hook. The eighth-floor room exhibits ninja weapons, such as shuriken and makibishi (a pronged, spiked weapon). Furniture such as lamps bear the emblem of the Momochi, a famous ninja family from Iga.

The program is expected to attract many fans, including international tourists and families with children.

“Tourists from Europe love our ninja rooms,” said Kazuhiro Matsumoto, manager of Ige Ueno City Hotel. “Now that the rooms have become more attractive with ninja tool exhibits, I think (they) will be very popular.”

The tourist association hopes to expand the program and develop Ninpak into a profitable enterprise, particularly in Osaka ahead of the 2025 World Exposition in that city.