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And? Reasonably so. Tourists are annoying af
Almost all of the places I have lived have been tourism heavy.
- French Quarter, New Orleans
- Park City, Utah
- Kissimmee, Florida (Disney)
- Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- Austin, Texas (not at first, but definitely the later years)
- Destin, Florida
There is one recurring theme. People on vacation are stressed the fuck out, desperate to enjoy their very limited and probably very expensive time off, and impatient. This makes many of them rude and entitled. Many people forget to brimg their common sense and their manners when they go om vacation. They also have a propensity to binge on everything including food, entertainment, and especially booze and/or drugs. Locals are under no obligation to take your shit just because you are blowing $10k on a week or weekend vacation (of which you only get two of per year) with the family, and you are having an existential crisis that you hope your expensive vacation might remedy. Some of us are just trying to get a coffee on the way to our daily grind and you have decided to let your kids sample every flavor of ice cream in the shop before only buying a single scoop. If you see people waiting, be nice and offer to let someone else get their order in while your kids make up their minds. It is common courtesy.
Having experienced life in a city with a heavy tourism influence, it’s not the tourists that’s the problem, it’s counterintuitively a select few locals ripping the arse out of it.
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Housing shortages and sky high rents because homeowners and flat owners stick their places on AirBNB and other types of peer to peer services they provide access to;
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Ludicrous policies imposed on residents by locally-contracted private enterprises like event managers extending their road closures and parking suspensions a quarter mile away from their actual event areas, fucking over residents who actually live there for the other eleven months of the year;
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Zero hour contracts for those in gig economy or service workers, who get used and abused for a few weeks a year and fucked off when the good times dry up, while business owners have made bank;
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Increased pressure on public services for a few weeks a year, caused by influxes of folk putting heavy demands on the staff but leaving local residents to foot the tax bill;
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…and the usual creep towards city centre locations trending towards tat merchants selling utter shite.
It’s important to note that none of the above is anything wrong, it’s just assholery for the most part…
…and then those small numbers of “locals” have the gall to blame Mr and Mrs Miggins from halfway across the globe for ruining the city. Fuck all of the way off
Do you live in Edinburgh by any chance? Because that all sounds familiar…
Nah, fuck tourists and tourism generally. Maybe if they didn’t wreck where they lived they wouldn’t feel the need to come looking to get waited on. Also, fuck economies that rely on tourism, how about some manufacturing or tech industry? Promoting tourism should be last on the list of priorities for any sane locale
Wtf no. Tourism is awesome, you get to show people from around the world the awesome parts of your country and take them on amazing experiences. It makes a ton of money and encourages a beautiful town.
A world where every town was manufacturing, or tech sounds like a dystopian hellscape.
TIL I’m wrecking where I live and that’s why I like to travel. I could have sworn it was because I wanted to see and experience different places and cultures.
Yes. Stay at home in your closed off little bubble. Never experiencing other cultures or places to help expand your world view and instead reinforce it with the echo chamber of those around you.
I mean… that’s one definition of tourism I guess?
I’m very much a “leave only footprints” sort of guy - I know Brits have a bit of a shit reputation particularly when it comes to inexpensive package holidays, but I think tourism and learning about the rest of the world promotes a greater understanding of the only planet we live on. Whether it’s food; culture; history; or scenes of key historical events - it gives a window into people’s own gaps in knowledge or empathy.
I agree that an economy based entirely on tourism is a house of cards in itself, but I don’t think it’s a binary choice. Humanity have always had a nomadic element and there will always be those who want to travel, but it should be done sustainably.
I second this. I watched my hometown turn into a tourism focus and there ended up being no careers so there was massive brain drain as people left to other towns and states for work.
A strong tourism industry in a small city does displace everything else. It’s one version of the Dutch disease that actually happens even when the government doesn’t actively cause it.
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It’s almost like the “economy” has fuck-all to do with quality of life and a couple business owners getting rich isn’t worth commodifying your home!
the locals don’t want you there, the transplant white business owners and their pocketed politicians do
Tourists when they enter a place: Clearly the whole economy is based on Tourism :)
College town permanent residents when me and my university homies would roll into a local joint.
A city has tourism-based economy, because tourists go there. If they wouldn’t go there the economy would be based on different stuff.
who’s
\sigh
Reminded me of when took my boys to Yellowstone. On the way we stop in a town that 100% would not exist without tourists. Yet every restaurant and diner were actively hostile towards us. Fucking locals could not stand that we were there and they refused to serve us. We left and had to get breakfast at a McDonald’s few towns away.
I live in Jackson, Wyoming. I can assure you that any hostility towards Yellowstone tourons in Jackson, Teton county Wyoming and Teton county Idaho is very well deserved. Maybe not you in particular, but there are plenty of people that come this way and forget to pack their common sense and manners. So, good people get the rough treatment thanks to jerks with no care for the wilderness they are there to admire.
The tourist season for Yellowstone is very, very short, and the rest of the year it is absolute paradise. All that said, most locals are really friendly. If they seem prickly, it is because they are stressed. Imagine if your town’s population went from 12,000 to about three million visitors in three months. Smile, be friendly and they might warm up.
PS: If you meant the West Gate entrance in Montana then take what I just said above and multiply it. That place is fucking insane during peak.
shop local <3
I’d be happy if they just stayed out of the bike lanes.
