Japanese government planning higher ticket prices for foreign tourists at Tokyo National Museum

Agency for Cultural Affairs wants two-tiered ticket pricing system at 12 National Museums.

Located in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, the Tokyo National Museum is considered by many to be the finest museum in Japan. Filled with centuries’ worth of historically significant artwork and artifacts, it’s a must-visit for anyone with an interest in Japan’s cultural legacy, but if you’re a foreign tourist, the Japanese government wants you to start paying more than locals do for a ticket.

The Tokyo National Museum is part of Japan’s National Museum Network, which receives funds from the national government. Multiple media organizations are now reporting that the Agency for Cultural Affairs, part of Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, wants the museums to reduce their reliance on government funding, and instead cover a greater proportion of their operating expenses through self-generated revenue such as ticket and merchandise sales. Museums that fail to meet their targets will face restructuring, and possibly even closure.

The initiative affects the following 12 art, history, and science museums, three of which are located in Ueno Park.
● Tokyo National Museum (Ueno)
● Kyoto National Museum
● Nara National Museum
● Kyushu National Museum
● The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan
● National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
● National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
● National Film Archive of Japan
● National Museum of Western Art (Ueno)
● National Museum of Art, Osaka
● The National Art Center, Tokyo
● National Museum of Nature and Science (Ueno)

The Agency for Cultural Affairs wants the museums to be generating revenue equal to 65 percent of their operating costs by 2030, which is roughly 10 percent higher than their current performance. Under the plan, those which are under 40 percent at the end of fiscal year 2029 will undergo restructuring, with an exception made for the National Museum of Nature and Science, for which a minimum allowable percentage has not been disclosed.

Several ideas have been proposed to boost ticket revenue. Starting with the visitor-friendly ones, the agency has discussed keeping museums open later at night and extending the runs of special exhibitions to allow more guests to visit.

▼ The thousand-year-old katana Dojigiri, during a special exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum

However, raising all ticket prices is also an avenue being explored, and the agency says it wants a two-tier ticket pricing system, in which foreign tourists pay more than Japanese guests, to be put in place no later than March of 2031.

Two-tiered pricing has become a topic of more intense discussion in Japan recently. Record-breaking numbers of foreign tourists arriving in the country while the yen is at its lowest value in decades represents an immense economic opportunity for tourist attractions and tourism-adjacent facilities and businesses, such as museums and restaurants. At the same time, Japanese residents are seeing their own buying power eroded by rapid inflation and stagnant wages. This puts facility operators in a quandary. Do they raise prices to better profit from foreign tourists, for whom the extra cost will still feel acceptable, and possibly even negligible, while alienating Japanese residents in the process? Or do they keep their prices low in order to remain accessible to locals, and leave all that tourist cash on the table?

The situation gets further complicated with Japan now having a larger number of foreign (i.e. not ethnically Japanese) residents than ever before. Ostensibly, under a two-tiered pricing system foreign residents would pay the same price for National Museum tickets as Japanese citizens, but could possibly be required to show proof of residence when making their ticket purchase, which might not feel like a particularly welcoming atmosphere to some.

It appears that after weighing all those factors, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has still come to the conclusion that two-tiered pricing for the National Museum is the right decision.

Source: NewsJP/Kyodo, NHK, Yomiuri Shimbun
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