Honestly, they should tax cheaper lodgings, instead.
We need to encourage more big spenders, less backpackers who eat at combini.
Kyoto citizen here. I am up for adjusting for over tourism, I want tourists to contribute to the city since they take a lot of space and makes certain parts of the city unreachable for citizens unless they swim through a mass of people.
However, it always seems like the easy fix is to “just add rules and taxes” without thinking out of the box in a way that helps everybody.
For instance, there are a huge chunk of great places in Japan that have LOST visitors over the years, a lot of not that major places with still a lot of vibe within Kyoto, and so on. There could be positive incentives to promote people to stop gathering among the main areas of the main cities, but there is nothing on that as far as I can see.
Negative reinforcement is always the way around here I guess. And again, that comes from a citizen who pays a shit ton of taxes and would love to empty the areas of Kawaramachi Kiyomizudera and the usual places that are swarming with tourists.
I feel like they just want to appear they’re doing something with overtourism. Those tourists who book 100,000 yen(and above) accommodation per night can likely afford the increase.
To reduce overcrowding it would be more efficient to require advance reservation for popular sights/temples etc.
6 comments
Good idea
Fucking time.
Honestly, they should tax cheaper lodgings, instead.
We need to encourage more big spenders, less backpackers who eat at combini.
Kyoto citizen here. I am up for adjusting for over tourism, I want tourists to contribute to the city since they take a lot of space and makes certain parts of the city unreachable for citizens unless they swim through a mass of people.
However, it always seems like the easy fix is to “just add rules and taxes” without thinking out of the box in a way that helps everybody.
For instance, there are a huge chunk of great places in Japan that have LOST visitors over the years, a lot of not that major places with still a lot of vibe within Kyoto, and so on. There could be positive incentives to promote people to stop gathering among the main areas of the main cities, but there is nothing on that as far as I can see.
Negative reinforcement is always the way around here I guess. And again, that comes from a citizen who pays a shit ton of taxes and would love to empty the areas of Kawaramachi Kiyomizudera and the usual places that are swarming with tourists.
I feel like they just want to appear they’re doing something with overtourism. Those tourists who book 100,000 yen(and above) accommodation per night can likely afford the increase.
To reduce overcrowding it would be more efficient to require advance reservation for popular sights/temples etc.
Those 100,000 a night people are not the problem