VIII century

Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan opens in Hayakawa — the oldest continuously operating lodging in the world

Fujiwara Mahito founds the Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan

The Zengorō Hōshi line begins at Awazu Onsen

Quseir Amra is built — a bath-house and lodge in the desert with no defensive or commercial purpose, and the earliest surviving building in this register put up purely to receive people in comfort

Guangzhou keeps permanent guest houses for Arab and Persian merchants — an early prototype of the international hotel, eight centuries before the word

The widow of Emperor Shōmu gives his possessions to the Shōsōin — Persian glass, Central Asian textiles, instruments from China and Korea