Kyoto Plans To Tax Visitors

Above, Kyoto Tower Hotel. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

If you are planning to visit and stay in Kyoto, Japan, you'd best visit before 2018 as a new accommodation tax is expected to be imposed.

According to the Asahi Shimbun:

KYOTO--Officials of this hugely popular tourist destination plan to impose an accommodation tax on visitors using hotels and Japanese-style inns as early as April 2018, sources said May 10. 

A Kyoto city government committee has been discussing a new tax system since August 2016 to obtain a financial source to deal with the increasing number of tourists, including measures to alleviate congestion. 

Mayor Daisaku Kadokawa supports the committee’s proposal for the accommodation tax and plans to put it in place in the next fiscal year.

I visited Kyoto in 2015, but stayed in nearby Osaka and took commuter trains to and from the city.

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