the depths of poverty that exist in other countries.

They rarely understand the poverty that exists in their own countries.

So much this. It's sure to be a rough figure, but I quickly found someone calculating the percentage of people travelling internationally in 2018: it's 2 %. Let's say he's off by a lot (and assuming only a fraction of people with the money actually travel) and go with 10%, that's still a pretty elusive circle of rich people right there.

Sure, but back in the home countries the rich are not fleeced for their money for regular services and goods.

People are willing to pay more money but the "I am entitled to your money" makes it feel like they are being taken advantage of.

They might as well go to a relatively more expensive country(more expensive than the "tourist prices" in india) to avoid feeling othered.

Judging by the downvotes, some very aggressively do not want to understand. They’re offended that you should even suggest it.

There's like 4 threads here, If you want to talk about it, talk about it. don't whine that someone else didn't start the conversation

Why would you go to another country and talk about their politics with the locals? Don't point out issues with a country you are a guest in to nationalists.

Awhile ago I learned that there's a thing called casteism. I thought racism was extremely stupid, but casteism just cranks the stupidity to 11. So instead of discriminating against someone's skin tone or nationality, you're discriminating against literally nothing??? Whatever, man...

I'm from Pakistan so it's not like I can ever get a visa to India in the first place but why do this? Why make an entire nationality pay more money because of events they were never involved in? If this is supposed to act as "reparations" then again, why are you charging people who are already paying a lot of money to get to the country?

They do this in Thailand. When you live here & don’t pull in the same income as before but can speak the language & whatnot, it feels awful to be treated as such an other when your local community accepts you. You also need to understand how they check which is normally just a skin color check—I’ve spoken to Filipinos that never get the foreigner rate. The worst one for me was in Laos where I was joking in Lao with the staff & had to pay the price, but some ethnic Lao folks from France got the local price despite not speaking a lick & asking me local culture questions in English. I didn’t hold it against them personally, but it really sucks.

a lot of those trains date from when India was British property. India needs trillions of $$$ investments in infrastructure

The money one would be perfectly fine if it was an explicitly stated official policy where Indians get cheaper access to their own tourist attractions and cultural sites. I think it probably starts to get annoying if everything you pay for is marked up by some amount on the spot by chancers who are taking advantage of your naivety. I haven't been to India so I don't know if this is a big problem or a rare occurrence, but I have heard of it happening before, typically in poorer countries.

Lifting people out of poverty by giving them honest jobs with livable wages is probably the only way to fix this, because poverty creates desperation and desperation can lead some people to petty theft, or a host of other personal and social problems.

Indeed, I think that people in a country should be able to see their national monuments/treasures at a reduced cost. It's pretty likely that at some point their taxes paid for some of it, and making such things only for tourists is lame.

During Covid here (Canada), locals were given free access to national park, and the restricted tourist traffic meant that people were actually able to find camping spots (many of them get gobbled up and pre-booked by tourism agencies/bots). A lot of people realized there was a lot of the country that they had been missing simply because the industry prioritized tourists over locals. If you're going to a country as a tourist, budget and plan to pay as a tourist!

That's just semantics, like businesses being banned from giving a surcharge for using a credit card, but they can give a discount for cash. It amounts to the same thing.

I think of it not as an extra charge for tourists, but as a discount for locals.

Of course the tourist who can obviously afford to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a vacation doesn't want to be asked to spend 5 more fucking dollars on something and would rather shift the responsibility on to the locals. But why? When locals probably hardly ever go, and tourists are the one they not only depend on for income, but who are the ones putting the added strain on the local infrastructure?

Because you're a cheap selfish privileged yet oblivious individual who is there because you can get a lot more for a lot less money, and some just don't care why or how or who is really paying the price, that's why.

I think this is an Indian newspaper which has printed this question from quora to show it's readers. I say indian newspaper because the design looks familiar.

It's a detriment to treat women like humans and not sexual objects to grope?