The Asian Wall Street Journal today has an article on ryokan entitled "Room at The Inn - For Foreigners". The main rationale for the new welcome mat appears to be economic since "about half the ryokan still lose money, says the Japan Ryokan Association". One place mentioned, Atami Seaside Spa & Resort, has even started offering a bed & breakfast deal for about 5,000 yen compared with the dinner deal starting at around 13,000 yen and heading north. Their site on http://www.atamiseaside.com is only in Japanese now but they claim to have English speaking staff.
The online link is subscription only but here are a couple of paragraphs:
Traditional Japanese inns, known as ryokan, are opening their doors to foreign guests - and offering tips on their myriad unspoken rules that made them inhospitable to many non-Japanese in the past.
Ebisuya, a 350-year-old inn near Kamakura, started accepting foreign guests four years ago, when Junko Nagano, the 30-year-old wife of the inn's 20th-generation owner, felt it was a shame to exclude foreigners. She also felt the guests would add to business, and has hired an American staffer to serve foreigners.
...Ryokan owners say they've discovered that foreign guests tend to stay longer than Japanese guests and visit year-round, compared with Japanese guests who tend to come only on weekends and during the holiday seasons. A survey by the ryokan association showed that two-thirds of 1,500 member ryokan were interested in accepting foreign guests this year, up from just one-third two years ago.
The article gives some basic tips on ryokan etiquette and mentions Jeff Aasgard's Japan Guest Houses site.
