Foreign tourists must be charged higher fees than local people to visit cultural places and historical sites. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Give your own opinion including relevant examples.

Foreign tourists must be charged higher fees than local people to visit cultural places and historical sites. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Give your own opinion including relevant examples.

 

Ielts Essay - Foreign tourists must be charged higher fees

Levying foreign travelers with higher entry fees at various historical sites and other places of tourist interests has been a common trend world over. But, this has sometimes drawn flak from the various sections who feel that this practice is unjust.

Levying higher than locals, charges, at various locations of tourist and cultural relevance, for alien tourists seems to be justified. The local inhabitants contribute a lot, through taxes and other levies, a share of which also is used to maintain historical locations. This contribution makes natives deserving candidates for special treatment. Furthermore, whatever money governments collect from the alien travelers is often used to cover up the deficits in maintenance of such locations, and improve tourism infrastructure that targets foreign tourists.

Moreover, locals are the true owners, and unofficial ambassadors of such locations. Furthermore, it is also important to make young generation appreciate its national heritage. Creating parity between charges paid by natives with that of aliens would defeat the whole purpose; locals would not visit if they have to bear a heavy entry fee. Citizens are a quick medium of carrying around the word of mouth, which can create awareness in the world, e.g. when nationals upload pictures and write blogs about their experiences about tourist locations, the word spreads around the globe quickly.

However, charging alien travelers more has some serious drawbacks since this move may be considered as a bias towards the foreigners. This is bound to dissuade many travelers from visiting these locations who would be unwilling to pay exorbitant fee. It may also become difficult for travelers hailing from poor countries to afford visit to these destinations due to unfavorable exchange rates.

Hence, I feel imposing higher charges on entry of aliens visitors at tourist locations is fully justified, and the contra view  lacks substance since no parallels can be drawn between locals and foreigners.