Japan began issuing a traveller departure tax on Monday 5 January in a bid to raise funds to promote tourism.
The International Tourist Tax will go towards funding and boosting the tourist experience for the 2020 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, which will be held in Tokyo next July.
The thousand-yen levy, which works out to nearly R130, will be added on to departing travellers’ air and sea travel tickets and is applicable to all foreign travellers and children aged two years and older.
Cherry blossoms in Osaka, Japan. Image credit: Unsplash.
Japan’s Kyodo News explains that the money generated from this new government policy will be allocated to one of three tourism funding avenues. The government hopes to streamline and improve transportation services, create navigable and accessible tourist resources for popular Japanese attractions, and improve the local offerings and overall tourism experience.
The majority of the collected funds, which is estimated to be in the region of 50 billion yen or about R6,400 billion, will be spent on tourist resources such as multi-language interfaces and facial recognition technology at air- and sea ports.
Japan expects to receive 40 million foreign visitors for the 2020 Summer Games, and this estimation is based on the growing numbers of tourists visiting Asian countries according to government research.
The Japanese are not the first to introduce such a levy, either. The Italian parliament recently announced that they will also be introducing a tax for tourists hoping to visit the romantic lagoon city of Venice.
Albeit at an extra cost, if the Japanese government is successful in its plans to transform the tourist experience, prospective travellers will hopefully have a lot to look forward to.
Here are some sights to look forward to:
Featured image: Unsplash
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