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The story
The city of Kyoto has settled on a plan to introduce “dual pricing” at the UNESCO World Heritage site Nijo Castle as early as fiscal year 2027. Residents would get a discount while non-residents would pay more, with the price gap expected to reach double — a move aimed at funding the repair and preservation of cultural assets, given that the vast majority of visitors come from outside the city. On 5ch, opinions split between those who see it as fair (“residents already pay city taxes, so this makes sense”) and skeptics who call it “a backdoor price hike” or point out that “Himeji Castle once shelved a similar plan that would have split pricing by nationality” — debate centered on where to draw the line and how other castles have handled this before.
Oct 1 (Thu), 10:21 JST
Kyodo News
The city of Kyoto, which manages the UNESCO World Heritage site Nijo Castle (Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto City), has settled on a plan to introduce “dual pricing” for admission — charging residents and non-residents different rates — as early as fiscal year 2027, city officials revealed on the 1st. Residents would see a discount while non-residents would face a price hike, with the gap set to reach double. Since the vast majority of visitors come from outside the city, the plan aims to use the added revenue to help fund the repair and preservation of cultural assets.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Well, residents do pay city taxes after all.
Kyoto residents: ¥1,300
Japanese nationals: ¥2,000
Everyone else: ¥4,000 — sounds about right.
Actually, Kyoto's on the low end for per-capita city tax among big cities.
It's ¥20,000-30,000 below the average for other cities with a million-plus population.
Part of that's because there are relatively more students, and corporate city tax revenue is low.
Wait, is Nijo Castle's upkeep actually funded by city tax?
If so, I'd rather they stop that, lower the resident tax, and just charge everyone ¥2,000 instead.
Not going.
I wouldn't want to run a business this shamelessly —
at least, that's how I'd feel in their shoes.
City-run facilities charging residents and non-residents different prices isn't even unusual.
Wait, is Nijo Castle even city-run?
Elsewhere in the world, they distinguish between citizens and foreigners, you know.
Is Nijo Castle itself even inside Rakuchu, or is it Rakugai (outside the old center)?
So Fushimi and Yamashina are just out of luck, then?
This country's really gotten poor.
Japanese people who aren't Kyoto residents get charged double too, you know.
Exactly why it'd be smarter to just raise the price across the board and then add a resident discount on top, instead of doing it this way and stirring up backlash.
For Kyoto residents, Nijo Castle is basically the poster child for "please just burn down already."
Don't forget about Kyoto Prefecture residents!
You mean Mie Prefecture? (pun: "sanju"/mie-sounding wordplay — 三重 means both "triple" and the name of Mie Prefecture)
If anything, that kind of "consideration" is the weird part.
Heard Himeji Castle originally tried dual pricing split by Japanese vs. foreigner, but got buried in garbage complaints.
So they switched it to resident vs. non-resident instead.
Shutting out Japanese people too — I mean, come on, that's just dumb.
It's basically just a price hike in disguise.
The big three tourist spots locals never visit:
Arashiyama
Rurikoin Temple
Nijo Castle
Admission fees, mountain trail fees, Shinkansen tickets — all of it, ten times.
Go that far and I'll actually believe the "inbound tourism is profitable" line.
If anything, foreign tourists don't even pay an entry tax (the exit tax is only ¥3,000), get tax-free exemptions on everything, and can buy unlimited-ride Shinkansen passes.
A friend of mine actually has a nightingale floor at home.
First time I walked on it, I just thought it was a rickety old hallway.
Since it's city-run, isn't it better to cover operating costs from admission revenue on a user-pays basis, rather than from taxes?
Is there really anyone who wants to visit Nijo Castle badly enough to go that far?
The only time it looked rough was during COVID — otherwise Nijo Castle seems like it could basically run on admission fees alone.
Background and key points of this debate
Nijo Castle’s admission fee has been raised incrementally in recent years amid rising prices and climbing preservation and repair costs, and the current “dual pricing” proposal is an extension of that trend. The key point is that the price gap is drawn along “resident vs. non-resident” lines rather than nationality. Himeji City had previously considered a plan to raise fees only for foreign tourists, but shelved it after facing criticism — and Nijo Castle’s proposal appears to have been designed with that precedent in mind. The debate on the thread essentially boiled down to whether this distinction counts as “reasonable user-pays fairness” or “xenophobia in a more palatable disguise.” One point readers may easily miss is that “non-residents” also includes Japanese citizens living in other cities — a fact that drew pushback on the thread itself, with posters asking whether Japanese people were being shut out too. Meanwhile, whether Nijo Castle’s operating costs are actually covered mostly by admission revenue rather than taxes was never confirmed on the thread — it remains speculation.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Kyoto] Nijo Castle to Introduce Dual Pricing — Resident/Non-Resident Price Gap to Double.”
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