Kyoto is expecting an influx of high-end tourists from 2014 when two new luxury hotels open their doors.
Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons are currently under construction and when complete will add close to 500 new top-end rooms to the destination.
Akimi Okuda of the Kyoto Chamber of Commerce said: “At the moment we struggle, especially in spring and autumn, to accommodate all the luxury travellers that want to come here.
“So they end up staying somewhere else and we lose the spend in Kyoto.
“But with these two new hotels we will have many more rooms and hopefully more affluent British tourists.”
Currently Kyoto is predominantly treated as part of a tour of Japan by British tourists, she added, but for returning guests it is high on the list of places to spend four or five days.
The UK is the top European feeder market for Kyoto and a fam trip taking UK travel agents out to Kyoto is currently being put together for next year.