The Mysuru Palace.
Credit: Special Arrangement
Mysuru: At a time when there has been a rapid decline in the number of foreigners visiting Mysuru Palace over a decade, the increase in their entry fee by ten folds from Rs 100 to Rs 1000, is too high and may affect their inflow further, tourism stakeholders opined.
Mysuru hotel owners' association President C Narayangowda and Travel agents association President B S Prashanth have urged for the revision of this new entry fee by the Mysuru Palace Board for foreigners.
Narayangowda said, "They have hiked the entry fee without consulting tourism stakeholders. When the foreigners to Mysuru have already declined, would they not want to visit Mysuru at all? They should have doubled. But this hike by ten times is unfair. They must revise it."
Prashanth said, "When the travel agents take advance bookings from foreigners, we would have already given a quotation of Rs 100 as entry fee for the palace. So, if there are 35 people in a group, we would have quoted Rs 3500 as entry fee. But now if it becomes Rs 35,000, travel agents will have to bear the extra burden. They would not have got even that much of commission for it."
"When they hike the entry fee, they can hike it maximum by 100 per cent or 200 per cent. When they charge so much, what better facility are they giving within the palace? They should immediately roll the hike back," he said.
Karnataka Tourism Federation, Vice President, M Ravi said, "Before they charge such a high entry fee, they should provide better basic amenities to tourists like demarcated parking space, clean toilets."
"Due to the high cost for trips, including hotel rooms and airfares, tourists are already getting diverted to countries like Malaysia and Thailand which are cheaper to visit. Now this unreasonable huge hike in entry fees inside the palace should not affect the further flow. When other countries like South Korea, Japan, South Africa and Sri Lanka do not discriminate between foreigners and their own citizens for entry fee for their monuments, why should we be doing it?" he questioned.
"Tourists come to Mysuru mainly to see the palace. At a time when the inflow of foreigners is slowly picking up after pandemic, this hike should not become a deterrent to their visit to Mysuru," felt J Nagesh, a native said.
Mysuru Deputy Commissioner and Executive of Mysore Palace Board, G Lakshmikanth Reddy said, "The entry fee of Rs 100 for foreigners at the Mysuru Palace was artificially low. In European countries charge five times more entry fee from foreigners compared to their own citizens to visit their museums."
"When foreigners plan their visit to India, these charges to visit monuments like the palace would not matter much to them. In terms of their own currencies like dollars or euros, this charge would not be high, so it is not likely to affect their inflow to the palace," he said.
Mysuru Palace Board DD T S Subramanya said, "The decision to hike the entry fee was taken in the Palace Board meeting, where several IAS officers felt that the entry fee for foreigners is lower compared to other destinations in India like Taj Mahal where they charge up to Rs 250 for Indians and Rs 1350 for foreigners," he said.
Mysuru Palace received 80,835 foreigners in 2012-13; 72,483 in 2013-14; 69,758 in 2014-15; 68,370 in 2015-16; 64,614 in 2016-17; there were 54,293 foreigners in 2017-18; 48,022 in 2018-19; 51,074 in 2019-20.
During the Covid pandemic in 2020-21, there were 551 foreigners in 2020-21;1,606 in 2021-22 and after the pandemic, there were 23,168 foreigners in 2022-23 and 34,604 in 2023-24. This year so far there have been 11,824 foreigners to Mysuru Palace.