Ok let me answer first, I spent 11 years in Japan, I founded there an engineering company, but I am a also pilot. I have long scouted for self-made helicopter operation opportunities there. I understand the motivation of your project but I must say it has gigantic holes through out.
1/ you are a foreigner in Japan, you will always be, that gives you a tremendous disadvantage with the Japanese administration, (you will need a lot of that to set up a private operator status). If in addition you don’t have a native language skill, your odds are very low that you can be more than a rich investor and not a day-to-day participant. In other words you will hardly have any chance to lift the business up with sweat equity as you could in another country.
2/ you don’t have a helicopter pilot license, and even if you had one it could not be converted to the Japanese license. (Very few japanese pilot come from the private training sector, all of them are government trained)
3/ Yes Hokkaido is a great ski resort area, it is mostly frequented by Australian and they do have purchasing power, I don’t think any Heli ski services exist there. but note that the weather can be inclement to flying for long period of times there. That world renowned power snow condition of Hokkaido is there for a reason, because it snows all the time. And then in the summer what are going to operate your aircraft on.
4/ Success in starting a successful venture is to make money quick, from the first day you start. You better have a very solid customer connection ready to pounce (VIP travel agent…). In any case USD 4.5M seems like a very small amount for setting up such an operation. I would not consider anything below USD 15M a viable amount for a project like that.
5/ I will let somebody else explain that it’s not about buying in an aircraft and flying customer around, the amount of operations that need to be built around will dwarf the cost of acquiring the aircraft. The Japanese helicopter industry is highly government regulated, and Japanese authorities hate risk taking. Please try to visit the current operators there. One of the most friendly there is alpha aviation, there are worth your taking a look and talking to.
I was just like you for a few years, I tried studying setting up a shuttle from Narita Airport to Tokyo center. On paper it looked like it could have some meat in the project, but it was insanely difficult, riddled with administrative issues that even the Japanese people who had worked on it for decades were still working at trying to go around them. to give you an example, Narita airport does not open the airspace to helicopter shuttles. So, you land in your private jet, then you take a limo to Sakura (15 minutes ride) outside of Narita airport airspace only then start your trip to Tokyo by helicopter. It takes about the same time as other means of transportation.
Next, I looked at being the dedicated helicopter services supplier for one of the best football team in Japan. Because I knew the star player (Keisuke Honda) and he was building his own football team, I was going to buy a retired AS365 Dauphin and assign it to his personal football team use. That also crushed by administration.
I think you way underestimate the Japan challenge.