Japan to OK train fee hikes over holidays amid “overtourism” concerns

34 comments

1. What about the people living here who want holidays?

2. Hey JR, before you even think of raising fares, how about try not having hour delays every time it looks like rain, thanks.

3. Just another way to squeeze the population dry and blame tourism. Doesn’t matter the birthrate won’t recover, they already tripled the price of the rail pass from what I understand.

4. That’s not going to help at all 😞

5. Japan is begging for an economic downturn lately. One huge problem with this is how many working class follow the exact same schedule and will be limited in funds already due to forced inflation against a huge percentage of private workers not benefiting from the wage increases being suggested by the government.

   The population is literally decreasing faster than any other nation, workers are overworked and starting to feel underpaid, and no one is able to afford frivolous things as much as they did before.

   I predict that in ten years time, if they don’t get progressive real fast, Japan will not be recognizable as a superpower of any kind.

6. I already pay an hours wages in train fees every day.

   People who have to go to work are still going to have to use the train and tourists aren’t not going to go to Kyoto because the price has been increased slightly.

   A non-solution to a problem that will only piss off people who actually live here.

7. Well, the classic “we don’t want tourists but only their money”.
   I get it that tourism is a pain, I don’t want to move to Kyoto for this reason. But it doesn’t seem to be the correct way of doing it.

8. Taking away more disposable income from the people, that’s sure to help the economy

9. Why would you, I dunno, increase capacity and profit from that increased capacity when you could just raise prices and do nothing?

10. So they are simply pricing out poorer people from being able to travel easier and faster while rich folks probably won’t care.
    Also more money spent on transport means less money spent elsewhere for a lot of people.

11. This is why I bike

12. Article seems to be introducing it as surge pricing during holidays and weekends, with no rises permitted outside of that.

    1. I don’t buy that for a second. Offer a company a chance to make more money, and they’ll take the piss as much as they can.
    2. Who decides if a particular period falls under these rules. Where will the oversight be coming from. What punishments will there be for raising prices across the board. Who okays the rises.
    3. Public transport following surge pricing is ridiculous as it is. What are the logistics behind that.

    So essentially, there’ll be across the board rises, making travel financially untenable for the poor and a privilege for the rich.

    Not to mention it harms the people who live here far more than tourists. The yen is so weak tourists won’t even notice, not that taking the train a couple of times impacts their budget all that much in the first place. People using trains week in week out will feel this, not tourists.

    Besides, when I’m packed in like a sardine on my daily commute, there sure as hell aren’t any tourists on my train. But sure, price the lower classes out and limit their social mobility. Gotta keep them where they belong. Investing in infrastructure would be ridiculous.

    One thing I’ve noticed back home, but especially with the particular kind of incompetence Japan has – politicians seem to forget they’re public servants essentially under our employ and being paid to work for us. If I subcontracted out a project and the contractor came back with a shitty proposal that falls apart under the slightest scrutiny, you’d tear them a new one for the disrespect and wasting your time and money, and fire them. Politicians get to produce the same pathetic bullshit over and over again, like it’s a class project for them. Insane.

13. These are the same people that complained people were not traveling enough only months ago.

    Yet here we are.

14. Always blame the foreigner 😂.

    I mean, fix over tourism by requiring visas. Bingo, now you control the influx of tourism. Problem solved… except that’s not really the problem and you just want to jack up prices … oh well

15. And we had “Go to travel campaign” last year.

16. 増税クソメガネ

17. Get to the real question. It wasn’t a problem before, why is it a problem now? Just be honest

18. Paying more money for a public transit system that is less convenient every year as stations close, services are reduced and train lines are shuttered and replaced with buses. They say that the problem will only get worse next year as the law changes and they can no longer work drivers to death with excessive overtime.

    I like to travel by public transportation, but there are many cases where it is cheaper and quicker to drive. Especially if you’re a family and are paying for fares for multiple people. Maybe tourists won’t mind paying extra, but I think that in the long term these fare hikes are just going to incentivize more people to drive.

19. AND WEEKENDS???

20. Because it wouldn’t be possible to put the fee at the airport or put it as “city tax” when you book a hotel as a foreigner ….

21. Once again they show they don’t understand the root cause of the ‘problem’ – and proceed to try to issue blanket punishment to everyone under dubious ideals at best.

    Why should I pay more on my already middling salary in order to have fun on *my* days off, because someone in the government is still frustrated that they couldn’t endlessly continue to keep the country closed? It’s kinda obvious to me that this it stems from things that aren’t exactly legitimate or reasonable

22. No more younglings to pay taxes, ah need to over charge people of all ages and nationalities.

23. over-tourism, is this coming from the same country that was supposedly bleeding dry from lack of tourism like … yesterday? Yeah foreigner scapegoat moment

24. God he’s such a fucking idiot

25. Just make a special Suica card that you can only purchase if you are a resident (must show ID). Residents get normal fares, tourists can pay higher prices. The problem is over TOURISM right?

    And if you want to have “surge” pricing then it makes the most sense to put that pricing when trains are busiest, like RUSH HOUR. Make businesses decide between footing the bill or having their employees shift to work from home.

26. A lot of tourists, raise prices for trains in general that obviously affect regular people living here.
    Nice one, dick head.

27. Politically speaking, that is a sneakily masterful way to jack off regular jackoffs, but make it look like Johnny Foreigner did it.

28. How much paperwork is going to be needed to show you’re a resident and are exempt from the price increase? How many times am I going to have to visit city hall for this? How many tax slips do I have to provide? Nothing is straight forward here so I’m dreading this.
    What’s more, my company has a 3k daily limit on travel, do you honestly think that they’ll increase this limit based upon these price increases? Will they fuck do that.

29. for an article that talks so much about the negative impact of overtourism on the lives of precious local residents, there’s a suspicious lack of reassurance that the price hikes won’t have a negative impact on the lives of the exact same local residents.

30. Another stupid idea from the old men in charge.They already increased the rail pass, time to just impose a better tourism tax. They already stated they are only interested in the rich tourists.

31. The article doesn’t specify, but I assume this means Japanese holidays, right?

    So not, let’s say, holidays in other countries where their residents would visit Japan. Instead, this would mostly affect Japanese residents because they’re the ones traveling more during the holidays

    Genius

32. Didn’t know “concern” was a synonym for exploitation.

33. Everything in Japan is a problem.

    “we need more tourists”

    “too many tourists”

34. One thing I haven’t seen mentioned much yet is that the “peak” tourism targets of weekends and holidays will significantly amd negatively impact domestic tourism only (since domestic tourism is the bigger chunk of tourism GDP) AND THE FACT WE ALL HAVE THE EXACT SAME DUCKING DAYS OFF. That is the frickin problem with overtourism–almost everyone ONLY has those New Years and Golden Week holidays and weekends off so those are your literal only chance to be a tourist. Let people have more flexible time off (not to mention staggered working hours because of peak rush hour) and not have ONLY the main holidays and normalize more than taking a 3 day weekend once or twice a year and the tourism load will spread out a bit and lessen the burden.