Following Japan, Russia has imposed a resort fee, mirroring the trend of imposing additional charges on tourists. Amid controversy over Japan’s move to impose extra taxes, such as a tourist and accommodation tax, to manage the surge in tourist numbers, Russia has started levying resort fees on tourists.
According to TASS Russian News Agency on April 1st (local time), hotels, serviced apartments, and nursing homes in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, accommodating guests for over 24 hours are required to collect a resort fee of 100 rubles (about $1.38) per adult guest per day. This is by the law on introducing resort fees in the St. Petersburg area, which was adopted in June last year. Although this law was enacted on October 1st last year, there was a grace period until March 31st. From April 1st, all Russians and foreigners staying in St. Petersburg’s accommodation facilities must pay the resort fee.
However, certain groups in St. Petersburg, such as residents, college students, World War II veterans, Ukrainian ‘special military operation’ veterans, large family members, and individuals with disabilities, are exempt from this fee. The St. Petersburg authorities plan to use the collected resort fee to develop, preserve, restore, maintain, and enhance St. Petersburg’s tourist infrastructure. The authorities expect to earn about 310 million rubles (about $4.64 million) from the resort fee this year. Meanwhile, there has been controversy over moves to collect additional taxes, such as tourist and accommodation taxes, from foreign tourists in Japan, where the proportion of Korean tourists is the highest. After the increase in tourists visiting Japan due to influences such as the weak yen after COVID-19, there were suggestions to introduce a so-called dual-pricing system. Under the system, prices and fees are high for foreign visitors and cheaper for Japanese. In addition to this, another plan is underway to collect accommodation and tourist taxes in various regions. In the Niseko region of Hokkaido, an additional accommodation tax of up to 2,000 yen (about $18) per night will be levied from November. Also, more than ten local governments, including Sapporo and Hakodate, are considering collecting accommodation taxes. After the Osaka-Kansai Expo in April, Osaka is also considering imposing additional taxes separate from the existing accommodation tax.
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