1. Operator and acceptance
These Terms govern your use of theryokanguide.com (the Site), operated by Vent Neuf Ltd, trading as The Ryokan Guide (TRG, we, us). Our postal address is 62 Athinas, Athina Court, 1st Floor, Office 103, 8010 Paphos, Cyprus and our registration number is HE 492024.
By accessing or using the Site, you acknowledge these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Site. Nothing in these Terms limits a mandatory right or remedy that applicable consumer law does not allow us to limit.
2. What the Site provides
The Site is an editorial and informational travel publication about ryokans, destinations, culture, and related travel topics. It includes research-based profiles, proprietary TRG ratings, maps, articles, and links to independent websites. The Site is not a government, tourism-board, hotel-classification, emergency, medical, or legal service.
3. Bookings and independent providers
Booking buttons and other external links take you to a ryokan, online travel agency, or another independent provider. If you make a booking, your contract is with that provider, not TRG. Its prices, mandatory charges, availability, payment terms, cancellation and refund rules, customer support, privacy notice, and terms apply.
Check the provider's identity and the complete price and conditions before paying. Contact the provider directly about confirmations, changes, refunds, disputes, and service delivery. A link does not mean that TRG owns, controls, represents, or is authorised to act for the linked provider.
4. Accuracy, changes, and travel decisions
We take reasonable care with published information, but travel facts change. Prices, availability, access routes, opening dates, amenities, meal arrangements, onsen rules, child policies, minimum stays, accessibility, and cancellation terms may be incomplete, delayed, translated, or no longer current. Images may show a room, meal, season, or facility that is not included in every booking.
Verify material details with the property or booking provider before travel. Tell both the property and provider about allergies, dietary requirements, mobility or accessibility needs, health considerations, and other essential requirements. General content on the Site is not a substitute for current professional, government, safety, visa, or health advice.
5. Ratings, rankings, and editorial opinion
TRG Stars, scores, Top 100 positions, selections, descriptions, and recommendations are our proprietary editorial assessments. They are not an official Japanese accommodation grade, a consumer-review average, a guarantee of a particular experience, or an assessment made on behalf of a booking service.
They can change when sources, property operations, our criteria, or our methodology change. The actual research and scoring process—including when a profile is desk-researched rather than based on a stay—is described in our Editorial Standards & Independence policy.
6. Newsletter and book waitlist
Submitting an email address asks us to send only the communication described beside that form. The book waitlist is an expression of interest, not a preorder, reservation, purchase, price guarantee, or promise that a book will be published. You can unsubscribe or withdraw consent at any time. Our handling of the address is described in the Privacy & Cookie Policy.
7. Affiliate, advertising, and sponsored links
A link marked “Ad — paid booking link” is an affiliate link. TRG receives a commission if an eligible transaction is attributed to that link. The label is shown before you click; our Affiliate Disclosure explains the relationship in detail.
Any paid placement or sponsored material must be labelled as advertising before engagement and kept distinct from independent scoring and ranking. A commercial relationship does not make a third-party provider part of TRG or make TRG a party to its services.
8. Intellectual property and permitted use
Unless otherwise identified, the Site's original editorial expression, design, branding, arrangement, and software are owned by or licensed to Vent Neuf Ltd. Property names, trademarks, photographs, maps, source data, and other third-party material remain the property of their respective owners or licensors. Facts, ideas, and methods are not claimed as exclusive merely because they appear here.
You may view, link to, and print reasonable extracts for personal, non-commercial use with attribution. Without prior written permission, you may not republish substantial portions, remove rights notices, impersonate TRG, use our branding to imply endorsement, sell our editorial work, or systematically extract Site content to create a substitute product or dataset. This does not restrict normal search indexing that follows our published crawler controls, accessibility tools, lawful quotation, or another use protected by applicable law.
Our documented public content API may be used for bounded search, retrieval, and attributed citation in accordance with its published limits and caching instructions. That access does not grant permission to republish substantial portions of the Site, remove attribution, or create a substitute commercial database or publication.
For permissions or a good-faith rights complaint, use our contact form with the URL, work concerned, your basis for the request, and reliable contact details.
9. Acceptable use
You must not use the Site to:
- break the law, infringe rights, deceive others, or facilitate harmful conduct;
- introduce malware, probe or bypass security, or interfere with Site availability;
- send destructive or unreasonable automated traffic;
- misrepresent an affiliation with TRG or a property;
- circumvent access controls or collect personal data from the Site unlawfully.
We may restrict access that creates a security, legal, or operational risk. We will act proportionately and this clause does not limit lawful consumer, accessibility, research, quotation, or interoperability rights.
10. Availability, warranties, and liability
The Site is provided for general information on an “as available” basis. We do not promise uninterrupted access, that every error will be corrected immediately, that an external link will remain available, or that a particular property or trip will meet your expectations.
To the extent permitted by applicable law, TRG is not responsible for an independent provider's acts, omissions, booking performance, payment handling, cancellation decision, insolvency, or travel service, or for indirect or consequential loss that was not reasonably foreseeable when you used the Site. You remain responsible for the choices and transactions you make with third parties.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability where doing so would be unlawful, including liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, deliberate misconduct, or any consumer right or personal-injury liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.
11. Governing law and disputes
These Terms and non-contractual disputes relating to them are governed by the laws of the Republic of Cyprus. Subject to any mandatory right you have to bring a claim elsewhere, the courts of the Republic of Cyprushave jurisdiction. This choice does not deprive a consumer of mandatory protections or court rights available under the law of the country where the consumer habitually resides.
Before filing a claim, please contact us with a concise description and the resolution you seek. This informal step does not shorten or suspend a legal limitation period and does not prevent either party from seeking urgent relief.
12. Changes, severability, and contact
We may revise these Terms to reflect service, legal, security, or business changes. We will post a new effective date and give reasonable advance notice of a material change where appropriate. Changes apply prospectively. If one provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect to the extent allowed by law. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
Questions about these Terms may be sent using our contact form or by post to Vent Neuf Ltd, 62 Athinas, Athina Court, 1st Floor, Office 103, 8010 Paphos, Cyprus.