An announcement Kamori Kanko released on August 3, 2026 brought the full shape of its pickleball business into view. In Hokkaido,Rusutsu Resort has 8 courts, and in Inatori, Higashiizu, Shizuoka,Izu Resort Villa has 20. Together the two sites operate 28 courts, which the company says makes the group the largest operator in Japan. It also set out a plan to add 16 courts at Rusutsu in June 2027, taking that site alone to 24 and the group total to 44. Read not as news about one big court complex but as a move to tie distant sites into a single operating network, the announcement means something different.
28 courts at two sites in Hokkaido and Shizuoka, with Rusutsu going to 24 in June 2027
Here are the numbers. The eight dedicated outdoor courts at Rusutsu Resort opened in July 2025. The 20 courts at Izu Resort Villa opened in July 2026 and are described as the largest at any single facility in Japan. With those 20 added, the Kamori Kanko group reached 28 courts in total.
The expansion is aimed at Rusutsu, not Izu. Adding 16 new courts at Rusutsu in June 2027 will bring that site to 24 alongside the existing eight. Together with Izu's 20, the plan comes to 44. Thickening the Hokkaido side reflects a resort's need to keep courts working through the snow-free season. Both facilities are approved courts of the Pickleball Japan Federation (PJ), and Rusutsu pairs full-spec courts built to competition standards with spectator seating.
| Base | Location | Number of courts | Opening and plans |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rusutsu Resort | Hokkaido | 8 courts → 24 courts | Opened July 2025 / 16 courts added June 2027 |
| Izu Resort Villa | Inatori, Higashiizu, Shizuoka | 20 | Opened July 2026 |
| Group total | ― | 28 courts → 44 courts | Planned as of June 2027 |
Why one downtown court at 9,000 yen an hour still cannot become 20 at once
Whether a block of courts can be secured at once comes down to the cost of land. In Minami-Aoyama, Tokyo, attached to an indoor golf facility,Pickle9 makes a downtown court work at 9,000 yen an hour. Golf revenue carries the rent on prime land, which means the reverse is also true: lining up several pickleball courts downtown on pickleball alone is hard. In built-up areas, even filling a single court takes ingenuity.
Resorts start from the opposite position. Rusutsu and Inatori both sit on wide grounds already held for lodging and leisure. Lay courts there as a use for the off-season or for idle land, and blocks of 20 or 16 can be prepared in one go. If downtown stacks courts one at a time, a resort can place them by the block. That gap is behind Kamori Kanko reaching 28 courts so quickly.
What 44 courts can absorb against 330,000 players and 280 facilities nationwide
The market is growing fast. In an estimate Pickleball One Inc. published in March 2026, Japan has roughly 330,000 players, about seven times the roughly 45,000 of the previous year. The company puts potential players at about 11.89 million, leaving room to grow around 36-fold. On the facility side, Pickleball Navi's own survey counted about 280 venues nationwide as of July 2026, spread across 36 prefectures.
The problem is that those courts are scattered. Venues with one to four courts dotted around the country cannot host tournaments or training camps. Running official doubles matches in parallel requires a block of courts in one place. Kamori Kanko's 20 courts in Izu and 24 at Rusutsu answer that demand for running many courts at once. Even as the number of players grows, places that can handle a large field in one sitting remain few.
Night Pickleball and the RUSUTSU Pickleball Open, drawing players by bundling a stay
The strength of a resort owning courts is that the facility does not have to stand alone. Rusutsu holds the RUSUTSU Pickleball Open and also runs floodlit Night Pickleball. Rather than selling play by itself, it packages lodging, meals and travel together to bring visitors from far away for overnight stays.
In that form, courts keep turning even where the local playing population is thin. Areas like Inatori and Rusutsu cannot fill 20 courts every day from nearby residents alone. That is exactly why they layer on demand that involves travel, such as tournaments and camps, and lift court usage with the pull of tourism. Kamori Kanko's long experience running resorts and lodging, centered on Hokkaido, pays off here.
The options a multi-site network opens up for players in Japan
What matters more than the total of 44 courts is one company holding two poles, Hokkaido and Shizuoka. Cool Rusutsu in summer, easy-to-run Izu year-round: the two can be used by season and climate. When the same operator runs distant sites, linking tournament calendars and camp plans across them becomes easier to design. What is happening in Shizuoka comes into focus when you look atthe full picture of facilities where you can play in the prefectureas well.
From a player's point of view, having a venue with a solid block of courts to count on makes trips and training camps easier to plan. For anyone starting from the question of where to go,how to find courts across Japanを押さえておくと、こうした大型拠点にもたどり着きやすい。加森観光の28面から44面への拡大は、コート不足が言われ続けた日本で、観光インフラを転用して多面を確保するという道筋を1つ示した。次の焦点は、2027年6月にルスツの24面が当時の計画どおり立ち上がるかどうかを確認することだ。
Sources
- Kamori Kanko builds Japan's largest pickleball court operation: 28 courts across Rusutsu's 8 and Izu's 20, expanding to 44 in 2027 (PR TIMES, August 3, 2026)
- Rising in popularity: new pickleball courts in Higashiizu, 20 in all and the largest in Japan (Shizuoka Shimbun DIGITAL)
- Japan Pickleball Market Survey 2026: 330,000 players, 11.89 million potential (Pickleball One Inc., April 21, 2026)
- Pickleball player numbers [2026 update] and real data on facilities nationwide (Pickleball Navi)
