The quote reflects a sentiment widely echoed in destinations which get more than their fair share of tourists and tourism dollars.

Anti-Tourist Sign

The point here is not to pile on tourists or tourism, but to list the reasons why many locals end up feeling contempt or hatred for tourists.

NYC tourist sidewalk

1. Alley Rage:- Earlier this month, some wag in New York painted up a divider on a sidewalk, instructing pedestrians that one side was for New Yorkers and the other side for Tourists.

It was quickly wiped off, but not before Mark Armstrong (Director of Content for Bundle.com) took a picture of the segregated sidewalk and generated enough buzz to attract Mayor Bloomberg’s attention.

In Venice, Italy it’s called Alley Rage. Massimo Cacciari, the Mayor of Venice, has even talked about an ‘entrance tax’ for the over 50,000 daily visitors.

If you have locals feeling aggrieved about tourists, start by educating locals about the need to be polite. Spain last year organized ‘friendliness seminars’ to teach grumpy Spaniards to smile and be nice to tourists.

Hawaii Superferry

2. Quality of Life:- The 2010 Mercer Quality of Living survey of 221 cities showed Honolulu as the second most pollution-free city in the world, with little traffic congestion and plenty of clean water and fresh air.

One of the main tenets of responsible tourism is not to harm the environment. But with the economy heavily dependent on planeloads of tourists, concerns about the quality of life of locals in the Hawaiian Islands is not very high up on the list of priorities.

That leaves small communities to defend their way of life on their own. The Hawaii Superferry, for example, was a spectacular failure largely due to heavy opposition from locals and environmental groups. 

Note to Hawaii and similar utopias – Come up with some sort of long-term sustainable tourism plan which doesn’t pit locals against tourists.

Orlando

3. Urban/Rural Divide:- In many states, one city sucks up all the tourist dollars while the rest of the state is left trying to deal with the fallout. 

Millions of tourists make their way through Central Florida every year without spending a dime on the way to the theme parks in Orlando, where they then shell out thousands of dollars.    

Tourists visiting NYC spend heavily, and then visit Buffalo and Niagara Falls for cheap day-trips. Nevada has the same problem with Las Vegas and Reno.

The state governments, tourism bureaus and county officials here need to come up with an action plan to promote more destinations and develop facilities to entice visitors to stay overnight, instead of passing through.

Forks, WA twilight tourists

4. Culture Shock:- Sometimes a destination gets unwillingly thrust into the limelight. Like Forks, WA which is now famous as the setting of the Twilight books and movies. Twilight author Stephenie Meyer chose it specifically because of the miserable weather.

Not exactly a tourist magnet then, and the kind of people who enjoy living in Forks won’t be the kind who enjoy twilight parties with drunk vampires and a carnival atmosphere out on the street. 

No big surprise that they hate the tourist groups, the entrepreneurs and tourist service providers who have moved in to cash in on the Twilight boom.

This is the same as the Dutch cannabis coffee-shops or the Indian slum tours made famous by Slumdog Millionaire. The locals want to be left alone, but they’re too famous an oddity to hide from curious tourists who come to gawk and take photos.

In such cases, tourism bureaus should issue brochures and train tour guides to help tourists understand the difference between cultural immersion and invasion of privacy.

Photo credits (from top) – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Gang Wars: This ain't your father's gun show

You’ve heard of Star Wars? A new travel group in Los Angeles is about to turn that phrase on its head.

For years, tourists have hopped on buses and toured celebrities’ homes — much to the dismay of many celebrities. Our particular tour caught a glimpse of Nicholas Cage walking out his front door — that is until he spied our big wheels on the curb, and he ducked back inside the mansion. We sat there almost 30 minutes trying to outlast Mr. Cage’s need to go wherever he was headed originally, but eventually we had to roll on. He won that round, if you call being trapped inside a mansion winning.

Hugh Hefner fought back, installing a security system at his home that included a cursing rock that announced to tour buses guides to “get the f— off my property.” Tour guides love to set it off for their passengers’ entertainment.

Now a non-profit group known as LA Gang Tours will begin offering a similar agenda in January, but this time the theme is gang related. According to the press release, this stroll will be “a true first-hand encounter of the history and origin of high-profile gang areas and the top crime scene locations.” Think LA County Jail, the L.A. River, the Metropolitan Detention Center, Skid Row, Florencia 13, Florence Avenue, and the Pico Union Graff Lab.

The men behind this idea are civic activists who believe  the poor economy in the interior of Los Angeles is a social injustice, as they like to phrase it. The hope is that Gang Tours can create jobs for folks in South Central Los Angeles and give back to the community overall. You can’t change without some green.

Of course, the real question is whether the idea will bring in real dollars. Sure, people play gang strategy games on the Internet, and the National Geographic Channel saw fit to make this a show topic. But there’s still a distance between the consumer and violence. In this version, participants shell out $65  to wear a flak jacket and sign a waiver on your life during the next few hours. Organizers say they’ve struck a deal with the gangs not to shoot off their guns between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., when they might hit one of these paying guests.

Even the founder, Alfred Lomas, a guy who turned his life around from the gang wars to a food ministry, understands the skepticism. “Well, the purpose of going into [Florencia] is that when this idea was first birthed, it was the result really of what’s known as a one-dimensional approach to a three-dimensional problem. And that is that for generations and decades now, our approach is putting people away in jail, incarcerating them. There’s no prevention, very little intervention, and the gangs are actually growing,” he tried to explain to CNN when its reporter came calling. Somehow, getting them to cooperate on this tour project brings awareness of the problem and that translates into change.

Tourists and gangs don't mix

God bless Mr. Lomas’ heart, because such loyalty and dedication is humbling. But I’m more in line with Dennis Zine, the Los Angeles city councilman who rebutted, “I think it’s a crazy idea. I think that if something moves forward on that, you’re going to jeopardize a lot of people. What are those gang members going to do when they see people coming by and looking at them and gawking at them?”

So while I’ll gladly recommend Alcatraz tours to clients,  hook up travelers with Chicago‘s crime history, and encourage people to take London Walk’s Jack the Ripper tour, I won’t make a peep about LA Gang Wars to my LA-bound clients. I don’t know that I have enough insurance to protect me in the case of an unfortunate incident. That, and the f-word is not entertaining in this setting.

Photography: Michael (mx5tx), DieselDemon