I’ve seen it once in a while down here (Key Largo, FL) but not for the most part. I only get annoyed with the heavy traffic and longer lines, personally. I love the tourists- they bring money to our economy and I find they have a great energy. There’s nothing more fun then having a regular happy hour drink at a local watering hole and instead of the bar being filled with sad old drunks like in my old hometown, it’s full of happy picture taking tourists calling home saying “HOLY SHIT, I’m in Key Largo under a tiki hut having a drink and I’m in SHORTS!” It always makes me smile. Everyone is having fun and the atmosphere is light. I enjoy the tourists. Frankly, it pisses me off when I hear people bitching. If you don’t like the tourists, move out of the tourist town and STFU is how I feel about it. Life’s too short to stress over it.
It’s not a lot of customers who request BBQ sauce in many locations. It’s one customer a day who makes some demand based on whatever’s on the menu back home, in a couple locations (McD’s, BK’s and movie theaters in Plaza del Sol, Plaza Catalunya and that’s about it). It can be BBQ sauce, it can be mayo, it can be chopped onion on their hot dog, it can be butter on their popcorn, it can be that they want the store in Madrid to redeem their coupons from Arkansas.
When I lived in the Orlando area, my house was in Ocoee, a suburb that was pretty far off the beaten path as far as tourists were concerned. Ocoee didn’t even have many of the normal transplants from the Northeast and Midwest; although most development was shiny and new, Southerners made up a much larger percentage of the population than other 'burbs like Winter Park, Oviedo, Maitland and and so on.
Tourists in Orlando, like those in SF, seemed like they were in their own world. If you didn’t go to Kissimmee or the International Drive area, you really didn’t encounter many. Out-of-state license plates were common sights elsewhere in town, though.
I think in cities that are built around tourism, like Orlando and Las Vegas, the “damn tourists” attitude isn’t as prevalent. Those cities would just not exist if it weren’t for tourists, and the locals recognize that.
If there was a group that could be considered more obnoxious than most, though, it was the Quebecois. Noticed the same thing whenever I was in Mexico, too. They just presented a face that was snooty and above everyone else.
I grew up in the Bay Area and the tourists aren’t seen so much as bad as funny. I mean, who would be dumb enough to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge wearing shorts and a t-shirt? Or do almost anything in San Francisco in shorts and a t-shirt? Seriously, did these people look at the “weather” section of their guidebooks before heading out to “sunny California”? So, we laugh at the freezing people.
I was a tourist in Chicago a few times before moving there, and people were always unfailingly nice to me if I looked confused on the el. After I got the hang of the city, I always tried to pass it on by asking people staring at maps on streetcorners downtown if they needed any help. I love Chicago and I like to share its charms with visitors. Although I do wish the tourists wouldn’t drive on Michigan Avenue.
Tourists in Bulgaria…well, people like the idea in theory, I think, but they aren’t really doing a very good job of being welcoming people who don’t speak Bulgarian (aka, everyone else in the world), to be honest. The info people at the bus station in Sofia don’t speak English. The train schedule is entirely in Cyrillic. Some work is still needed. OTOH, it does mean that every once in awhile, I get the chance to play translator, which is always fun.
A thing I read in the local paper recently…
If somebody speaks to you in a North American accent, and you are unsure whether they are Canadian or American, simply ask, “What province are you from?” Canadians will be thrilled, and Americans won’t be offended because they won’t know what the hell you’re talking about. 
I realize that making fun of how dumb Americans are is always hilarious, but how about just asking “where are you from?” Geez. It’s not that hard.
Also: I really hate it that Americans who don’t want to be associated with rudeness pretend to be Canadians. It’s completely lame. Take the opportunity to show people that all Americans aren’t boors.
I think you have it backwards. The ones pretending to be Canadians are usually selfish boors and thus are actually guilty of harming the good reputation of Canadians. 
Jim
Well, in my experience, that’s not the case, but if so, carry on! Heh.
I know it’s a running joke for Americans to pretend they’re Canadians while traveling abroad, but are there people who actually do this? :dubious:
The word “tourist” just has a strongly negative connotation to me. It evokes the image of someone loud and rude who’s only interested in taking photos and doesn’t bother to learn even the simplest phrases in the local language. I love helping people who are visiting wherever I happen to be living, but the ones with the above attitude shouldn’t be allowed out of their own backyard.
70% of Spanish tourism is Spaniards. Most of them speak the local language, or at least the language that’s common for the whole country. And if they insist in speaking “their” local language in a place where it’s not local, we can always refuse to understand until they switch
Don’t give in to anger and take it out on the tourists.
If you do, then The Tourists have Already Won
Exactly. I spent a week in Venice, staying near Piazza San Marco. The nicest part of the day was after the cruise ships left and the damn tourists got out of town. Ideally of course, they’d just let me and some of my closest friends in, then close the vaporetto down. I’d thought about sending a letter to the tourism board, but figured it wouldn’t help.
If a thing’s worth saying, it’s worth saying twice.
We have a saying here in northern Nevada: “Californians, thank you for your money. Now go away.”
Vegas (at the very southern tip of Nevada, a good eight, nine hour drive away from me) gets a good chunk of tourism money from all over the world; the rest of Nevada subsists mostly on Californians and perhaps some Utah-ans and Idahoans. Mostly, where I live, people from Sacramento pop over for a day trip over the weekend to gamble.
A good chunk of them can’t drive worth a doodly and get into car accidents with people who actually live here, and come here and get upset because we have smoking on the casino floors (but they can’t be bothered to find the nonsmoking casinos; no, EVERY casino should be nonsmoking). And, of course, because they’re tourists, they have no freakin’ clue where they are and display that constantly by suddenly deciding to make a right-hand turn from a left-hand turn lane (with a CA license plate, so we can curse their state). I shit you not, I see this on a weekly basis.
Generally, we like the money, but hate the source. If people came here and didn’t bitch about the way we run our state, and respected our driving laws (or better yet, just took a cab), I think we’d be a lot more tolerant. But for some reason people want to come to Nevada and have it be just like home. Why bother going on vacation?
~Tasha
Well, piping in from a community that would still be a one horse town without tourism, I do my best to tolerate the annoying little buggers. When tourism is down, the entire community suffers which was the case after 9-11 and after the hurricanes of 2004. Now if we could just get them to stay off the interstate, life would be grand.
San Francisco: most locals thumb their noses at tourists who never leave the “cable car corridor” of Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach, and Fisherman’s Wharf, but tend to treat those who actually leave this area to explore other parts of the city with respect.
That is, unless they complain about the weather or say “Frisco”. That’s asking for trouble. I’m not sure why it’s asking for trouble, but it is.
Being an East Bay-ite, I admire just about any tourist who makes it over the bridge. Most tourists don’t bother me at all, in fact. The ones that do, however, are always American - super loud (why the hell do they have to talk so LOUDLY?) and so fat and obnoxious.
What is the problem with Frisco? I do not understand the strong dislike for this shortening.
Where is East Bay? I thought East Bay was in San Francisco. You talk like you mean another country.
Jim
What with living in DC we certainly get our fair share of tourists here. I don’t really mind anything they do, but god forbid I need to ride on the subway at the same time they do. These yokels from inner-America simply do not understand the concept of stand on the right/walk on the left when it comes to escalators around here, and then they have the audacity to get mad when I or someone like myself kindly tells them to move the hell over.
I live in the East Bay and work in SF. It **is ** another country. 25 miles and 25 years separate the two.
Well, maybe not, but it is definitely a different county. Contra Costa and Alameda are the two closest East Bay counties. North of SF is Marin County and to the south is San Mateo County.
Figuring out the transit to get off of the peninsula and into the East Bay or Marin can be challenging to some.