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TOKYO -- A long-established bathhouse in the capital's Shinagawa Ward has undergone changes to become a hot spot thanks to a man who took over the family business three years ago. The Mainichi Shimbun looked into what the 36-year-old owner with the job title "furogrammer," a pun on the Japanese word "furo" meaning bath, on his business card had programmed for the public bath.

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the number of visitors has doubled in the last three years. People in their 20s and 30s, who rarely came before, now account for 40% of all customers. Established in 1950, bathhouse Kom-pal is located in a corner of a residential area. The congestion level inside the public bath can be seen on its website when it opens at 3:30 p.m.

When information on customers is entered through a tablet device at the reception desk, it is reflected on the store's website. "I introduced it to meet the demands of customers, who care about the level of congestion amid the coronavirus pandemic," said Fumitaka Kadoya, who has been sitting behind the bathhouse's reception desk full-time for three years.

Kadoya had been working as a system engineer for an optical equipment manufacturer just before switching his job. He majored in biology at graduate school, but was the only person who had no experience in programming among those who entered the company at the same time. He worked desperately to catch up, and his job gradually became more rewarding. Kadoya even succeeded in building a system to operate a research microscope from a computer.

The 36-year-old didn't initially intend to take over the family business, but his mother, who was running Kom-pal, suffered an injury and became hospitalized five years ago. Due to a lack of workers, Kadoya started to help out on weekends and after work on weekdays. As a system engineer, he didn't have the chance to directly interact with customers, but at the bathhouse, he saw visitors going home looking relaxed from behind the reception desk. He realized the significance of public baths as a place for people to relieve stress.

He soon began to notice that Kom-pal lacked basic data such as the number of daily visitors and its customer base. While still working for the programming company, Kadoya couldn't help but create a system to count the hourly number of visitors and their gender ratio.

It came to light that many of the visitors were elderly people living nearby, and only a few were women and children. In response, he prepared high-performance hair dryers and soft towels for women, and toys for children. In order to raise the average amount spent per customer, he began to sell merchandise such as original T-shirts and sauna hats, as well as craft beer that he bought at a brewery and chilled at the facility's refrigerator.

Kadoya built a website for the bathhouse four years ago, and began posting on social media. His lighthearted posts gradually spread, and young visitors began to increase. Some of these posts included, "Probably because the weather is fine today, there are many customers who are drinking beer after taking a bath in the morning, which makes me happy, too," and, "Tomorrow we'll be having a pomelo fruit bath. Please enjoy the large pomelos floating in the hot water!"

Kadoya left his programming company in 2019, and became the owner of Kom-pal. Although sales decreased for a while due to the coronavirus pandemic, once the sauna reopened, the system to let visitors know the congestion level at the facility's website gained popularity, and customers returned. He says young visitors have told him, "My mind and body feel refreshed thanks to the sauna," and, "The 98-degree Celsius sauna and 15 C water bath were great."

However, the situation surrounding the public bath industry remains severe. In May, Suehiro Yu, a bathhouse also in Shinagawa Ward, closed due to deterioration of the building and for other reasons. Thinking he "doesn't want the charm of public baths to fade," Kadoya negotiated with Suehiro Yu and decided to take over its operations. The bathhouse is scheduled to resume operations around the end of summer.

Kadoya aims to increase the number of visitors to Suehiro Yu by digitalizing the customer base, just like he did at Kom-pal. "Many eateries surrounding Suehiro Yu are open until late, so we are thinking about delaying its closing time," explained Kadoya. The "furogrammer" plans to spread the charm of public baths by further implementing information technology.

(Japanese original by Akira Iida, Tokyo City News Department)

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