The completion ceremony for the luxury Imperial Hotel Kyoto, a renovated Yasaka Hall in Gion, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto City, set to open on March 5, 2026, was held on the morning of December 18, 2025. Representatives from the hotel and the local geisha district attended to celebrate the new beginning of the building, which has long been a beloved Gion landmark.

The Imperial Hotel Kyoto was built by renovating the Yasaka Kaikan. The completion ceremony was held on December 18th (Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto City).

For the Imperial Hotel (Tokyo), a long-established hotel with over 130 years of history, expanding into Kyoto was a long-held dream. Since the plans were revealed in 2018, the hotel has been in discussion with local residents, the geisha district, and the government, and has been in the works for around seven years.

The ceremony included a Shinto ritual in the first-floor lounge, with offerings of sacred branches presented by Imperial Hotel President Kazama Jun, Sugiura Kyoko, chairperson of Yasaka Nyokoba Gakuen, the educational corporation that owns the land on which Yasaka Kaikan is located, and Suzuki Katsuhisa, chairperson of the Kyoto Traditional Performing Arts Promotion Foundation (Ookini Foundation).

This is the first new Imperial Hotel location in 30 years, since the Imperial Hotel Osaka (Osaka City) opened in 1996. Yasaka Nyokoba Gakuen provided a long-term lease on the land, and the Imperial Hotel owns the Yasaka Kaikan building, a nationally registered tangible cultural property, and has preserved and renovated it, inheriting its architectural design.

The hotel has 55 guest rooms in total. A French restaurant and a rooftop bar will also be open. Room rates start from 164,500 yen per night (for two people per room), with the planned price for the top-of-the-line Imperial Suite being 3 million yen per night.