As blistering heat scorches many parts of Japan, holidaymakers are flocking to summer resorts in the country including cool places, water resorts and Kusatsu, a town renowned for hot springs, to stave off the scorching heat weather.

Located about a three-hour drive by car away from Tokyo, the town situated about 1,200 meters above sea level in Gunma Prefecture, which is famous for hot springs that gush more than 32,000 liters of natural spring water every minute.

With average temperature of around 25 degrees Celsius in summer, the small town has been an ideal place for tourists to escape the summer heat.

To attract more visitors, some local cafes have offered cold beverages as well as ice creams while their consumers enjoying a comfortable hot spring foot bath.

"I knew this cafe with foot bath through the social networking service. (When I have cold foods,) my upper body feels cool, but my feet are quite warm. It's a perfect experience in summer," said a tourist.

Thanks to its exceptional water quality, Kusatsu has actually been ranked top in Japan's Top 100 Hot Springs for 20 consecutive years. Nearly 130 accommodation facilities nestle in the area of only 50 square kilometers.

However, due to operating pressure brought by continuous high inflation over the past two years, many hotels have raised room prices and three open-air hot springs operated by the local government have also raised the ticket price by an average of 100 yen, or around 71 U.S. cents.

"Many merchants are struggling to maintain the previous pricing and worried that price increases will lead to a decline in consumers' experience, but they are also very distressed that if inflation continues to grow, everyone may be hard to maintain the operation," said Ryouta Komori, director of Kusatsu Onsen Tourism Association.

According to a survey by JTB, Japan's largest travel agency, 72.5 million Japanese planned to travel between July 15 and August 31, equivalent to the scale of 2019. Meanwhile, affected by the depreciation of the yen, the number of people who opt overseas trips is only 40 percent of that before the COVID-19 outbreak. In terms of domestic tourism, the per capita tourism expenditure has reached an average of 20,000 yen (about 141.36 U.S. dollars) per day due to the impact of high inflation, an increase of 10 percent over 2019.