Koreans planning trips to the United States are worried about privacy intrusions, but many are also turning to self-censorship. Posts are piling up on U.S.-travel community sites, including comments like, “I have to go to the United States, so I deleted all my social media posts,” and, “I’m worried even my YouTube comments could cause problems.”
Kyoto, a city beloved by Koreans, will raise its lodging tax tenfold, from the current maximum of 1,000 yen ($6.31) per person per night to 10,000 yen starting March 1. In April, Hokkaido will introduce a lodging tax, with a rate of up to 500 yen, and 13 municipalities, including Sapporo, will also impose their own lodging taxes.
Travel to Canada then instead!
Similar climate to the USA and interesting attractions without the potential for being tossed into a holding cell and/or beaten.
Similar climate? Ummmmm. People who go to Canada in the Winter might have a hard time. I personally would die.
Depends a lot on where you go and specific weather patterns. Climate change is also a significant factor. It used to get well into the double-digits below zero (°c) here in winter. Now we tend to have around just below 0°c to double low double digits above…
It’s quite weird, I love travel and it’s easy to see that people are clearly making decisions about what they will not tolerate.
As for Japan it’s really become a victim of its own success like many other tourist hotspots, and it’s becoming untenable for locals…and TBH as a traveller many places are too overcrowded and a tacky experience. The result is only gonna lead to more expensive travel options.
With america and many other hotspots now removed due to political reasons I think that means adopting new travel habits unless you are willing to pay through the nose and/or compromise the want to visit list.
I interpreted for an academic conference about sustainable tourism shit fifteen years ago. It made so much more sense than what just feels like whoring out your culture for pennies.
And now, here we are, having to treat foreigners like shit as if it was their fault that we didn’t think ahead.
Yeah, we love traveling a lot, too. The numbers of tourists (which includes us, I know) has gone up so much in the last few years. It’s like COVID made everyone say, “fuck saving money, let’s just travel the world and buy luxury goods instead.” We went to Paris for Christmas 3 years ago, and while some of the bigger stores were crowded, it wasn’t that bad in the rest of the city. We just got back from Paris, and holy hell you could barely go anywhere due to the amount of people every place we went. It was 2C every day, and that didn’t deter anyone.
I fully support raising lodging taxes like this to help locals out who have to deal with idiots like me on a daily basis.
I’m missing the exact tax rate. A maximum doesn’t really mean much, does it? If the tax rate is, I don’t know, 1% of the price for one night (it’s probably more, I’ll assume, but let’s say for argument’s sake) and you reach that maximum of 10,000 yen, I’m not sure I have a lot of sympathy with your rich ass.
I’m confused. 10k yen is $63 dollars. Where is the “rich” part of this? Maybe I don’t understand. Or is that the point? That the tax is basically not high at all?
10k Yen lodging tax is only for rooms that cost more than $630 per person per night. For rooms that cost less than $130 per person per night, the tax is only 200 Yen or $1.26 with a couple tiers in between but it isn’t ‘expensive’ until you’re paying at least $300 pp/pn for your lodging.
Well, it seems that people are complaining that the tax is making stays in Kyoto too expensive. If the tax rate is 1%, the stay has to be very expensive on its own already for the additional tax to even reach the maximum of 10,000 yen. If you’re able to afford that kind of hotel, tax or not, I’d consider you rich and wouldn’t like to hear you complain.
I don’t know if the tax is high or not though, that’s what I’m trying to find out because it’s a lot more meaningful than just the maximum amount.
Ah, I get what you’re saying now. Haven’t had coffee yet. Thanks for the help.
