When my father saw it returning home from Europe after WW II, he considered it pretty significant. I’m a native New Yorker, and I don’t recall any of my friends ever calling it a tourist trap. It still does it for me.
The only thing sadder than tourists, in my opinion, are natives who won’t go to cool place for fear of being considered tourists.
Not so much. At least some people who live in tourist areas learn from bad examples. My daughter, after years of going to NY for auditions, is severely allergic to stopping in the middle of a street and pulling out a map.
I lived in a dorm which was an architectural landmark. Tourists in buses gawking at you when you eat lunch is annoying. Groups of architecture students from another university touring the dorm was even more so, especially if you were going back to your room from a shower.
People have a “moral obligation” to spend their money where they see fit. However, given the inflated prices of Manhattan chain restaurants, tourists might get a much more interesting and authetic experience (for the same cost) simply by picking up a Zagatts guide.
One of the best things about New York is that the most interesting areas are away from the tourists. That’s why, IMHO, you have to live in Manhattan to truly experience it properly. There are so many little restuarants, stores, bars and whatnot that your typical tourist just won’t be notice them.
My definition of a tourist trap is: an place, that once you go there, you can’t even imagine any circumstance that would bring you back. Or, of you’re a local, you’ve never gone, because you’ve heard from other local suckers what a rip-off it is.
Maybe obligation wasn’t the best word. What I was trying to get at was the implicit relation between the local and tourist as a sort of host and guest. Like a house guest, the tourist is the source of some inconvenience to the local, but if give back a little, then it’s not so bad.
I am what my wife calls a “rubber tomahawk tourist.” We’re Colorado natives and, as such, one of our favorite sports is tourist-watching in Estes Park. But I really do love the place – I cannot go there without buying salt-water taffy (I have no idea, that’s just what they call it) and some trinket from one of the shops on Elkhorn Avenue. There is a huge store at the corner of Elkhorn and Morraine that has sold, since I was a small boy, toy bows, arrows, lances and tomahawks. I confessed to my wife once that all my life I’d wanted a rubber tomahawk because that’s what all the other kids brought back from Estes Park.
Estes Park is a “tourist trap” in the sense that it exists primarily for the purpose of harvesting large sums of cash from people who don’t live there. Think of it as a sheep-shearing operation, and the tourists are all very wooly.
As a Coloradoan, I mostly love tourists. Bless their hearts, they’re trying to have experiences they’ve never had before, and I know what that’s like. I love to travel, so I’ve spent a lot of time being a tourist. I don’t expect them to know their way around, I expect them to need emergency help, to be unaware of our local ways, etc. I love them because they mostly appreciate what we have here in Colorado, they mostly poke fun at themselves as they take each other’s pictures, and they spend a lot of their hard-earned money on our rubber tomahawks.
What I hate, however, is the jerkoff who thinks that because he’s a big shot back home, he should be treated as such here, too. Sorry, Beavis, I don’t know you from Adam’s off-ox. I hate the overbearing bastard who demands the highest level of service and has a long list of instructions on how he wants his food prepared, then leaves a paltry tip, if any. I hate the fat cow who moos loudly about how un GAWD-leee hot it is, as if we locals have the power to turn the heat down.
Here is a story I’ve told before on these boards; I swear by all that is holy to the Dope that it is true:
I pulled into the McDonald’s in Fort Morgan, Colo., on a hot August day about two years ago. A Lincoln Continental with Florida plates pulled in about two cars down, and from it emerged a large, and what would turn out to be, very bossy middle-aged woman; her diminutive husband and their chubby teen-age daughter. We ended up pretty much together in line at the counter. In the next line over was a young Mexican man who was chatting up, in Spanish, the attractive young Hispanic girl behind the counter, and she was obviously enjoying his attention. She was local, he was not, and I know this because I’ve lived here all my life. Anyway, it was cute as hell, and he will figure into the story in a moment.
Ahead of me, the Florida family had placed their order; Papa left for the restroom and Mama and the girl were getting their drinks. Unfortunately, something was wrong with the drink dispenser; every time Mama went to draw lemonade, she got clear water. She loudly demanded a new cup and the attention of the manager. She finally got both, and the manager quickly determined that someone had mistakenly swapped the hoses on the lemonade/water dispenser. He hurried to the back of the store to rectify the problem while Florida Mama fumed and fretted over terrible service. Finally, the manager re-appeared with news the problem had been rectified, whereupon Mama immediately mashed her cup into the lemonade dispenser to draw – you guessed it – water. The manager tried to explain that he still needed time to drain off the water from the lemonade line, but by this time, Mama was furious. She threw down the cup and demanded her money back – just as her lunch order was delivered to the counter in front of her. There was a brief confrontation wth the manager, and she was persuaded to accept a voucher for freebies, good at any McDonald’s. She snatched up the sack of food and proclaimed she’d never had worse service in her life, and certainly never this bad in Florida.
For reasons I will never be able to explain, the harrassed manager looked directly at me with an expression that said, “See what I go through!?” I could not restrain myself. I asked him, loudly enough to be heard within about a 10-foot radius, “Why do they call it tourist season when we’re not allowed to actually shoot ''em?” At that moment the Mexican lad poked his head into conversation and advised, with a classic south-of-the-border accent, “Naw, you don’ wanna’ do that. Their hides are worthless and they taste like shit!” I was still laughing ten minutes later and ten miles down the road.
I’ve been putting off posting be can no longer resist passing on a few stories of obnoxious tourist stories.
-Down on the Hopi reservation, it is common to see signs that read “Please don’t enter residences uninvited.” I asked one of the locals if that actually happened. “All the time” was the reply. "How often is ‘all the time?’ “I dunno, once a week?” “People just open the door and walk into you home uninvited?” “Yup” :rolleyes:
-Tourists come here and carve their names on the rocks, usually it’s children; everytime that I’ve politely suggested that they shouldn’t do that, the little bastards have been vigorously defended by their parents. How does that compute? If me and mine came to where you lived and my kid started carving his name on anything would that be okay?
-It is never safe, legal or a good idea to park your car in the middle of a State Highway, with the doors open and stand around and take pictures.
-Don’t think that the price of everything is negotiable, I’ve stood behind tourists who were trying to negotiate the price of gasoline.
-Don’t be shocked, shocked that a town that possesses but a single stoplight doesn’t have a Walmart. We have six lights, but still, no Walmart.
-We’re in the middle of nowhere; it costs a bundle to get things shipped out here. Everything costs more. The prices aren’t raised because we get a malicious thrill out of ripping you off.
-Don’t litter; that’s not Okay anywhere.
-I’ll be patient with the fact that you don’t speak English. Don’t get impatient with me because I don’t speak…
-Driving 20MPH over or under the posted speed limit is unsafe and illegal.
-When you do something incredibly stupid and get hurt or lost, there is no ‘Ranger Station’ with paid professionals just lounging about, on standby waiting to come rescue you. They are volunteers that put aside their; lives, jobs and families to come save you.
-When your guide asks you to do something; do it. She’s not there to be a buzzkill or to order you around; she’s trying to make sure that you have fun. If you break your bones or you kid drowns, it stops being fun.
-Please realize that you make at least twice as much as everyone here. (The Mayor owns a convenience store.) Be gracious, don’t demand that we kiss your feet just because you spent some money here.
I don’t know, am I?
:rolleyes:
Shakespeare’s Stratford is a tourist trap, dedicated to parting them from their money as expeditiously as possible. Huge numbers of buses clog up the streets, to the disadvantage of those who actually have to live there. You can see performances of the plays there, but no better than the ones mounted anywhere else, and in some cases considerably worse, in the hideous Shakespeare Memorial Theatre which has never been a satisfactory working environment. Shakespeare’s Birthplace is, at best, a ‘three new heads and two new handles’ reconstruction and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage burnt down in 1969 and the present building is pretty much a replica.
Tourists contribute to an inordinate number of auto accidents because they aren’t familiar with the roads, or they’re driving very slowly to take in the views and impede the flow of traffic, etc.
Tourists are often lousy tippers, too – either because they’re on a tight budget [Canadian snowbirds are notorious for this], from countries where the gratuity is automatically added to the bill, or because they cynically know they won’t be repeat customers, so what does it matter if they stiff their waiter/waitress?
