In 1984, Hawai Onsen produced 1,500 liters of hot spring water every minute, with a source temperature of roughly 50 degrees Celsius.

[8] However, local government reports estimated that the popularity of Hawai Onsen reached its peak in the late 1990s, with over 570,000 visitors in 1996.

One historical document written in 1258 details a peace settlement that divided the land in central Tottori, and it refers to the area of modern-day Hawai Town as “Hawaida” (伯井田).

Fishermen discovered that hot spring water flowed out from the bottom of Tōgō Lake, so local villagers requested permission from the Tottori Domain to use it.

[3][5][11] The onsen’s development was pioneered by Kōsuke Yumura, a man from Iwami Province who is said to be a descendant of a samurai family.

In 1866, Yumura inserted bamboo tubes into the bottom of Tōgō Lake, extracting the hot spring water and funneling it into barrels in a boat.

This water was used to make a bath on the surface of the lake, which was known as “Aozora yuba”, and it existed until the start of the Meiji Period.

As a result, greater numbers of people from the Kansai region of Japan began to visit the prefecture as onsen tourists.

Motorization after the end of the Pacific War led to a rapid increase in visitors to Shin-Tōgō Onsen.

From 1954 to 1980, the number of visitors to Shin-Tōgō Onsen increased 24-fold, and larger multi-story inns and hotels were built.

[2] During this time, the tourism sector began to rapidly grow in nearby Hawai Town, which originally relied solely on agriculture.