Unseen JapanWith tourists flooding into Japan and taking advantage of the country's weak currency, some travel experts say it's time to jack up prices for visitors. Despite public support for the idea, some merchants say charging tourists separate prices would be "deceptive."
🦃 Kat Callahan 
🦃Whenever this comes up, my question always is--how do you keep merchants from applying it based on minority status and not based on residency? It's untenable in Japan because merchants are never going to ask for ID generally, which means making decisions based on phenotypical stereotypes.
I've had enough trouble with this with hotels, at least in the past. Recently this seems to have calmed down and I haven't been asked for a passport in the last few years.
But early in my time in Japan I'd have to argue with them. Once I even explicitly had to bring in the police to explain that asking a resident for passport or residency card is illegal.
I'd say that the best way to approach this is probably the same way other countries approach it, including the US. Out of prefecture visitors pay the higher price, even if they are citizens.
Domestic tourists are tourists and any tourism fees should affect all tourists--not just non-nationals. Especially given the risk of capturing non-national legal residents of the area.
TomatoGrilledCheese 
@jezebelkat @unseenjapan Japan once again being prejudice at best and their own brand of not seeing the bigger picture and can only think of today.
JoeJoeTom 🏳️🌈🎶🪨💛🤍💜🖤@unseenjapan So when the yen is strong, does that mean foreign tourists get a discount from the citizen price?
Will MacGregor@unseenjapan @TomatoGrilledCheese Some businesses already charge a gaijin premium. Or so I have heard.
@willofgregor @unseenjapan Yeah, this is just them trying to justify it now.
When The wife and I went to The U.S. in 2011 for Christmas I remember JPY being 77JPY to 1USD. Nobody was asking my wife where she was from and asking her to pay more. This is just Japan only ever able to think about Japan and not what is fair.
gullevek ☢️ 🇯🇵@unseenjapan @TomatoGrilledCheese It would just end up they people who live here have to fight for the right price. Fuck off
UmeChan@unseenjapan This sounds like a terrible idea. First, if it does happen, I don't trust them to phase out the system if the yen recovers. I also doubt it could be done in a way that wouldn't hurt people from less developed countries, especially if their currencies aren't as strong as the USD, EUR, GBP etc. It's also not as if every currency is experiencing historic highs in their value towards the yen. I looked at a few, and despite rising in recent years, the value of the Brazilian Real to the Yen is 32% less than it was 10 years ago. The Indian Rupee and Malaysian Ringgit are better at +7.32% and +2.17% compared to March 2014, but they're still lower than their peaks in late 2014.
I think discussing whether or not exchange rates are unfair is a waste of time. It's not as if there's a natural value that they should always return to, and I never heard anyone discuss lower prices for tourists when the yen had more value in the early 2010s. Compared to the GBP, I don't even think the Yen is particularly cheap at the moment. There were times when it went as high as 232 yen per pound when I first visited in late 2006.