The overwhelming crush of tourists was the only thing I didn’t like about my trip to Kyoto. Yes, I’m aware that I was part of the problem. This doesn’t seem like it’s really cracking down on over-tourism so much as generating a bit of extra revenue to help defray some of the public impacts of over-tourism. It seems pretty reasonable to me, as it’s directed towards the higher-end tourists rather than pricing out tourists of relatively modest means. But I do wish there was an actual solution to the problem of immense throngs of people flocking to popular tourist destinations. Maybe if a few other cities could put up some 600-year-old golden pagodas, we could spread them out a bit.
You know the saying, 600 years ago was the best time to build more golden pagodas if you wanted them today, but the next best time is today if you want 600 year old golden pagodas in 600 years.
The overwhelming crush of tourists was the only thing I didn’t like about my trip to Kyoto. Yes, I’m aware that I was part of the problem. This doesn’t seem like it’s really cracking down on over-tourism so much as generating a bit of extra revenue to help defray some of the public impacts of over-tourism. It seems pretty reasonable to me, as it’s directed towards the higher-end tourists rather than pricing out tourists of relatively modest means. But I do wish there was an actual solution to the problem of immense throngs of people flocking to popular tourist destinations. Maybe if a few other cities could put up some 600-year-old golden pagodas, we could spread them out a bit.
You know the saying, 600 years ago was the best time to build more golden pagodas if you wanted them today, but the next best time is today if you want 600 year old golden pagodas in 600 years.