Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/17/how-tourist-are-scammed-into-p.html
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A fun thing to do in Thailand is learn their numeric characters (non-arabic), and then check out the translated signs with pricing listed in English and Thai. “Farang” pricing in Arabic numerals is usually double the price listed in Thai characters. I don’t recall if this was all over, or just in the more touristy spots like Phuket amusement parks and museums, etc… I couldn’t get too annoyed at the time though, because it was like $4 to get into an aquarium instead of the locals’ $2 fee.
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Yeah, sometimes it’s hard to care too much about the “tourist tax”. In some countries, double the price is still far less than half the price in the U.S., so to me it seems like everyone wins if you’re dealing with a place where money spent will actually support the local economy.
Still, it’s always good to know what you should be paying in case you need to travel cheap for a bit.
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Leningrad / St. Petersburg, СССР (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик) 1981,
5 Ruski rubles to a 1 US dollar, and hilarity ensued. Seemingly ever Russian we came across was sure that rudimentary math wasn’t taught in the good ole’ USA.
Svetlana, where are you now?
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This was common as well growing up in Venezuela, people could just tell when they were dealing with a tourist and they’d jack up prices. I still think its dishonest even if the tourist in question doesn’t think the expense is all that bad, i always had a problem with taking advantage of people who are guests of the country.
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I was at a shop near Winthrop, WA which had a similar policy, but it was publicly posted. There was a sign saying that locals got 10% off. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC is doing this too. Locals can still pay what they want, but tourists have to pay the list price. I’m guessing we’ll see more and more of this as tourism becomes a bigger part of our economy.
We are in the age of mass tourism, and a big problem is that tourists put a lot of strain on local services but it is hard to recover the full costs from them. Not every country can impose a $250 per person per day fee on tourists the way Bhutan does. Meanwhile, cities like Amsterdam, Venice and Prague are overrun by tourists who are, at best, a mixed blessing for locals. The worst are the tourists on cruise ships who don’t even pay for hotels or food on shore. A high docking fee only makes up for a little of this.
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Discounts for locals or official government tourist fees are fine as long as they’re clearly posted. What’s shown in this video are straight-out scams, and certainly not ones that relieve the strain on local services.
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Normally, the money flowing in with tourists would tend to drive up the price for locals. (Mainly on things that tourists and locals buy, but it would eventually warp all the economy and drive up the cost of living.)
Hm.
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On the flip side, including a rum with each coke palliates getting ripped off.
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He recommends steering clear of stores that don’t have price tags on the products.
…everywhere in the world, and any other planets.
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Typo in the title. Should be “tourists are” or “tourist is.”
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I hate the underlying attitude here. Of course locals will know how to get better prices on stuff (like Amsterdam’s confusing public transport tickets), and of course vendors in tourist hotspots will charge a premium for the convenience of being easy for tourists to find. But this is, like, openly humiliating people for being foreign. Which seems especially despicable when the shopkeepers are themselves immigrants.
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A lot of the services I pay for when traveling are bought on line anyway, and prices vary enormously. I can get a discount just by deleting my cookies. So of course, tourists are paying more.
My take is that it can give a location a bad reputation if a tourist feels like people are being dishonest and taking advantage of the good will and hospitality they’re meant to be giving to tourists.
That’s not to say that all tourists are deserving of hospitality, but if i spent my hard earned money to go somewhere and i find out i’m being treated differently in a negative way i would never go back. The few times i’ve gone abroad people were incredibly accommodating and nice, both places i plan to return to.
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That really goes without saying when traveling anywhere. If you don’t speak the language and are not comfortable with the local currency, never buy something without a price tag. The irony is, the more likelihood of being ripped off is in heavily-touristed areas where English is spoken and prices are marked, because the prices are usually inflated anyway. Small stores, family places, areas off the beaten-path are usually cheaper but more difficult if you can’t speak the language. Not that you’ll necessarily be ripped off, but it’s frankly much easier to buy things that are clearly marked, especially when you first arrive. It takes a while to get your head around what something like a coffee or sandwich should actually cost. I love traveling but it usually takes me a a few days to acclimatize to a new country.
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I’ve seen dive bars in SF do this to keep out the riff raff (trust fund kids and tech bros)
but is that a scam or just a policy?
I tried to get into the Louvre for free because their site said students could enter for free - turns out they meant only EU students.
The clerk was kind of condescending and asked if they’d give the student price to an EU student in America and I was like well, uh, most of the museums in our capital are free to all, but yeah the ones that aren’t free to all would honor a foreign student ID.
On the upside the line to present your ID was shorter and she let me pay since I had cash.
I think she may have pocketed the cash.
Are there a lot of cruise ships stopping in Prague? 
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In Moscow in the 2000s, tourists were charged more at museums and so on, but it wasn’t a sneaky trick, it was an explicitly posted higher price for non-citizens. At least they were up-front about their xenophobia, I guess!
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It usually is policy. National parks, museums, temples, and cultural attractions are up front that they charge more for foreigners. The local and foreigner price commonly is listed in both character sets, but not always. For example, at Wat Pho in Bangkok, the foreigner charge for a massage is twice as much. Last time we checked, the foreigner price only is listed in English with the local price and information only in Thai.
You do sometimes see merchants charging two different prices in tourist heavy areas as well, but it is less common. A place without listed prices almost certainly will charge more for a foreigner (or at least a foreigner who doesn’t speak Thai) in tourist locations, too.
Of course, to get around, as a foreigner you should avoid taxis and tuktuks entirely. It’s one thing to pay twice as much for a massage at the birthplace of Thai massage and another entirely to have a taxi driver charge you a fortune and waste your time. In Bangkok, the BTS and MRT are your best friends.
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Yep, only buying from places with listed prices is a good tip just about everywhere.
It is a bit entertaining that Tesco is considered a local option, though. 
Not quite the same, but, … " None of the major river cruise lines sail through Prague but many, including Uniworld, Avalon, Viking, Scenic and APT, visit the city via a coach transfer as part of their Danube and Elbe itineraries."
From: www.traveller.com.au
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