Do you Live in a tourist area? Blessing or curse?

[justasking111]

We live in a tourist area, personally I see them as a blessing, yes they clog the roads at times, yes some leave litter. BUT their contribution to our economy enables our shops to operate 52 weeks of the year no empty high streets so on the whole they are of benefit to us. We know they are coming so plan our lives accordingly. We know the beaches they have not discovered so have our own fun. We enjoy the childrens activities which run for a whole spring summer season whether they are here or not.

Yes, a very popular city with tourists. It used to die away after the summer but it's a year round destination now. It brings in revenue but the congestion can be awful, Airbnb etc causing problems in the housing market, public spaces being closed off and monetised for private events. I so preferred having the place to my/oursselves for a good few months but that's gone now and I expect it to get worse.

I live in Charleston, SC. I like the tourists myself because it’s good for the local businesses but I’m not a fan of the traffic or parking for the beaches.

Lucky to live somewhere so beautiful though so I can’t complain I was a tourist before I moved here after all!

guilty I’m guessing you’re near York? I live v close to the racecourse but on a street that isn’t a walk through into town and enjoy seeing everyone dressed up and then barefoot and hammered later. It’s easy to avoid for me and wouldn’t go to stag and hen do bits of town on a weekend but love this city for lots of the same reasons tourists do.

@TheCumbrian the litter has definitely got worse in the last few years, especially since it became a world heritage site. Which is sort of ironic really.

@UCOinanOCG

St Andrew's per chance?

What do I win?

I'm central London too and am so used to tourists, it doesn't even register.

Both! I live in a beautiful and hugely popular area in Cornwall. I run a babysitting business which is very lucrative in the summer months, with barely a minute to call my own. Come October though and it dwindles to nothing, and doesn't pick up properly until May half term. I love most of the families I babysit for (especially as they're usually from London, and tip heavily!) but I hate the other impacts of tourism in the area - litter, traffic jams, dog ban on the local beach, impossible to park anywhere, very hard to walk the dog with the constant stream of cars down our little local lanes, the local hamlets being owned by second home owners, and the way the local visitor attractions get absolutely overwhelmed (try Eden project on a rainy day in August!).

I live in an area popular with walkers & day visitors. Mostly people are lovely and I am glad to see them, but like with all walks of life you get a couple of inconsiderates who taint it for everyone. Litter has increased as have the number of dogs off leads in lambing fields and nesting moors. Do not get me started on abandoned dog shit bags. Parking is near on impossible on a sunny bank holiday and there are loads of people about so popping to the shops with greasy hair and a jumper over jim jams is no longer a thing. However during the dismal months we have pubs and shops to enjoy.

Long term I worry about the number of holiday lets and the impact on the cost of housing - we have gone from none to 22 Air BnB listings in the last 18 months and a number of second homes which sit empty for long periods. This will have a long term impact on school, bus service and shop viability. The other worry is the number of people retiring to the village and the strain that is putting on social services budgets by people who have not contributed to them.

Tourism is my bread and butter so I'm not going to slate it but we do get a lot of litter on the beach people parking on our driveways all kinds of crap dropped on the pavements and my pet hate is being mocked because of my accent. In general it's lovely here especially in winter when I can sit in my lounge and watch the high waves and when Santa comes in on the lifeboat at Christmas time and all the little fishing boats are lit up and decorated I'm like a big kid
Pros and cons I suppose like everywhere else but I was born and bred in this very small town and don't like the busy cities so I'm very happy living here

Very mixed perspective. We live in a tiny village in national park.
Negatives
We get huge numbers of Lycra clad cyclists shouting, blocking roads and leaving laminated signs everywhere. Following a group of thirty egocentric men for ten miles at three miles an hour drives me bonkers. Them shouting at 7am on a Sunday is selfish.
I regularly get people asking to use the lavatory, use the phone, requesting water, asking for directions, panicking DofE groups etc. I don’t generally mind but on bank holidays it gets a bit silly.
Cars and minibuses parking on every verge and partially blocking roads.
Really tight planning controls.
Combining all through the night.

Positives
A very beautiful place to live. More sheep than cars through village. Noise is confined to cows birthing, herding, birdsong......and cyclists.
House prices are secure because of planning restrictions and limited availability.
We know everything about everyone.
Dog can walk off lead for miles from front door.
Sometimes the people that knock are nice and interesting.
Children want to come home or borrow house when we’re away.

I live 3’ from the Eiffel Tower and 5’ from the Seine. I also live in a miraculous street where tourists don’t come! But if I leave my street then, yes, they are everywhere and it does detract a bit from the ambiance though most of them are well behaved.

I used to live on a quiet street in a UNESCO world heritage site.

Tour buses used our street to park and disgorge.

I had a “hilarious” interchange with one bunch of Americans who were obstructing the entrance to my flat, whose bus was parked across the residents’ bay meaning i’d Had to park further away. Anyway when they start d commenting in my shopping - loo roll, washing powder etc they got short shrift.

Yes, I lived in a lovely place, yes my flat was amazing but I still need to shit!

I now live in central London - my friend’s kids are well trained on tourist walking vs. Commuter walking. Latter definitely preferable when on the school run! And yes, if you start taking photos obstructing the pavement when I’m on my way to work i’ll Walk through them. If I stopped for every bugger i’d Never get there as my route goes past some of the iconic sites.

Yes SunshineOutdoors, it is York. It's a beautiful city & I love that it's on my doorstep

Not a tourist town but we have a huge festival here every year. It brings lots of money and muddy teenagers to the town. It's fun watching the drunk kids trying to get to McDonald's!

Easterbunny
I bet I know where you live
Ne coast?

Guilty pleasures I live 20 mins away also for part of the year
I hear you

I used to live in Canterbury and the packs of gormless foreign language students that arrived by the coachload used to drive me loopy.

How distressing. If if Canterbury was just another Kent town like Gravesend or Erith it wouldn't so nice and the property prices would be cheaper. It's all swings and roundabouts.

I live in Edinburgh. It’s just one giant moron convention in August. There is talk of some kind of control measures being put in place (how I don’t know) but fingers crossed. It’s hell on earth trying to move anywhere.

Try living in Edinburgh during the festival and tattoo!

I live just outside of Canterbury and sometimes it's a pain.

We get a lot of pilgrims travel to the cathedral and when they arrive, they're bombarded by photo snapping tourists like an amusement attraction and I feel sorry for them. They're on an emotional personal journey.

We alps get a lot of school trips from week long ones to day trippers from France. Most are lovely but some are awful. There are some that shoplift, they take up our already narrow paths. On one ocassion one knocked into my pram after running around in a shop and the teacher laughed. I wasn't happy.

I live in a seaside town. Everyone traditionally comes here at Easter and it's a nightmare, you can get a phone signal, traffic horrendous as the town has a one way system and I live in the bottom of the town so only one road to get home and it can take ages. Drunken idiots fighting.
We have a major motor cycling event every May which brings thousands and the roads are closed, but the atmosphere is good and you know when the road closures will be so plan accordingly.
There is also a major major sporting event happening in July for the first time in decades which will bring thousands and thousands of people!
But on the whole it's a lovely place to live. It's nice in March when the tourists start coming but it's even nicer in September when they all go home again lol.

I live in a place on the coast which attracts walkers so they don’t spend money so there is no economic benefit. They are civilised enough though.

Tbh I have never noticed any litter but parking in the height of summer or on bank holidays is a pain.

There is the empty second home problem too.

Another odd thing is it is eerily dead in the winter. During extreme weather like storms or snow, I feel like the only person alive.

I live in York, and generally the tourists are a blessing, apart from the stag and hen parties. I'm not really happy taking my kids into town on Saturday afternoons and evenings because of the drunken groups.

I'm in London, though zone 3 so not really on the tourist trail. However I do have to deal with tourists while commuting, more in my last job when I had to go into zone 1.

I've never been too bothered by them, though remember chatting to an American tourist in a bus going up Regent St and he was "oohing" and "ahhing" over the architecture and telling me how lucky I was to come from and live in London. I'm scratching my head cos it's just my home twin (lived here since birth). He was even saying how cute the schoolkids were in their uniforms as where he was from only the privately educated wore them.

It wasn't even that bad during the Olympics. I even compls8ned to Tfl that it all ran too smoothly, as I was counting on it being my excuse for being late for work every day. (I'm joking. )

Mind you, I do love the various pronunciations of Leicester Square.

My favourite memory of a tourist though was going past Battersea power station on a train. One American kid asked his mum what it was and she said "I think it's a coal mine." 😁

Personally I hate the tourists! Taking parking spaces and causing long queues in my bakery! BUT. I know they make my little town what it is and for that I am grateful. I truly love where I live :)

That was supposed to be a smiley face btwl