If you live in a place popular with tourists, how do you feel about?

[Crunchymum]

Currently in a lovely little Airbnb cottage, in a pretty seaside town and I wonder how the locals feel about us tourists.

I get that tourism has major positives - employment / local economy benefits but I'd hate to live next door to an Airbnb or share my lovely beach with a billion others on BH weekend or deal with the noise and rubbish left (not even litter per just the sheer volume)

We are Londoners so are well versed on avoiding tourist hotspots unless we actually want to be in the hub but in smaller places it must be hard for the locals to avoid the tourists?

We live in a small city that has tourists and students. The tourists are much easier to cope with than the students which have tripled in number in 30 years since we’ve lived here and now every house and piece of land in the city itself has been given over to student accommodation. But generally I have no problem with either, you just get used to dodging them when they stand in the road taking photos.

Hate tourism. It's perverse, it's killing the very same places it worships.

I've lived in or near two tourist hotspots.

The one we lived near, we avoided during the season, but out of season was quite nice that we could get the benefits of the things put on for the tourists without the crowds. We also knew that the tourists were necessary for the area because they brought in much needed money.

Other one was a town and tourists were more of a pain than anything else.
They'd go into places that said "no entry" (and get stuck sometimes, then left behind by the rest of their tour party), French School parties were known for taking up the whole pavement (and also being caught shop lifting, which as they only normally had one teacher per about 50 kids meant the entire lot waiting at the police station), people asking the way (often to things that didn't exist outside fiction or their imagination) and often expected to get priority over locals (for basic things like getting to your front door).

I live in devon, between the moors and the sea. I don't mind tourists per say. I understand the benefits they bring. The disruption they bring is crazy.
On Saturday I was driving down a typical devon lane following a car towing a caravan. Then in the opposite direction comes another car and caravan. Neither party could reverse well enough to give way. After 10 minutes I turned round and went another way.
So from a locals point of view please do come but be willing to learn to do things like reversing potentially 100s of metres back down the road to the nearest passing place. Or be willing to move your car to the edge of the lane even if that means brushing up against vegetation. Devon lanes are narrow and if you want a scratch free car probably best not to bring it!
Also be willing to read and follow the countryside code. Don't feed animals that are not yours wild, livestock, or domestic. Take your litter home and don't start fires or have bbqs. We had a big moorland fire near here yesterday when a camper van caught fire.

You can’t make people not be twats. You just can’t. They are everywhere.
Genuinely London is the worst. But I also feel proud that I live in a city that is so revered

Used to live next to a holiday cottage. The holiday makers were never much bother apart from one Easter where I was a moody teenager and the young dc woke up at the crack of dawn and were high in chocolate the entire time. And the time tenants flushed sanitary products down the loo clogging the communal septic tank

I just wished that town planners when looked at the infrastructure looked at the numbers of people for the summer not in the winter or who lived there full time

It can be an utter nightmare, but that's due to a small number of tourists who ruin all tourists' reputation.

Someone on a day trip parking over your driveway when you need to get to work/appointments should not be 'something you have to deal with having chosen to live in a tourist area.' Nor should grown adults almost knocking you over on their bikes on the pavement when they should be on the road, or camper vans parking illegally and blocking the path of emergency vehicles.

But this is a small minority of people who are arseholes, as with all things and situations. Most reasonable people know that it is not all tourists, but at the same time, inconsiderate behaviour is not something I think I should have thought of when moving to a tourist area than if I'd been moving anywhere else!

I live in a chocolate box village an hour from London, we get many day trippers and tourists because lots of movies and series have been filmed here, I dont mind at all, I don’t own the village and it was my choice to live here knowing how popular the place is with tourists, I feel privileged to live in such a beautiful place 🤷🏻‍♀️ One thing I do get sick of is the never ending flurry of ignorant MAMILs chucking their litter in our gardens and pissing and spitting in the street, but thats another issue....

Agree with the poster who said tourism is a double edged sword, as surely everyone "travels" at some point.

We don't have a car at present (so came by train), bag up all of our litter when we leave the beach, and we have 3 young children so no wild parties granted the kid noise could be more annoying than a wild party but we are out most of the day and kids are asleep at a decent hour

Sorry to sound dismissive but if you live in a tourist area what do you expect?! Yes rudeness and littering is unacceptable but the busyness... That's what you get when you live there! I live in a big UK city, with a huge student population... Yes they're annoying on occasion but they make the city what it is.

We are in a tourist area. Wales, Snowdon, the lot. We avoid going out to town or near the beach between friday and sunday evening, as lots of people come just for the weekend. Weekdays are still busy, but not as bad.
So any shopping has to be done in the week. Traffic gets so bad, the locals all avoid the main route and use all the old back roads to get around.
Other than that I don't really mind at all. I was born here so used to it.
As a child I used to think my Mum was mean not taking us to the beach on hot weekends, now I understand.

@Turkishangora

Sorry to sound dismissive but if you live in a tourist area what do you expect?! Yes rudeness and littering is unacceptable but the busyness... That's what you get when you live there! I live in a big UK city, with a huge student population... Yes they're annoying on occasion but they make the city what it is.

See my answer below - busyness isn't the problem a lot of the time!!

Snowdonia. We need them (not me personally) But that doesn’t mean i like them.

Many ignore the signs -like no BBQ/take litter away/keep dogs on leads etc. Parking on the roads when the signs clearly says NO. And they moan “build a carpark”. Yeah, right. If it was that Easy it would have been done years ago. Its a national park FFS. Plenty of park and ride but they're too tight to pay for it,

I love it when they all piss off home.

@FedUpAtHomeTroels i get ya! Beach is strictly for winter use.

@Turkishangora

Sorry to sound dismissive but if you live in a tourist area what do you expect?! Yes rudeness and littering is unacceptable but the busyness... That's what you get when you live there! I live in a big UK city, with a huge student population... Yes they're annoying on occasion but they make the city what it is.

My family have lived here for generations. When they made their roots here tourism wasn't really a thing.

It is our home why should we move so that others can have a weeks holiday

Many people seem to leave their manners and common decency behind when them come on holiday, which is the problem more than the volume of tourists.

Lost count of the number of people who I overheard loudly talking about the fact that they were 'taking a break to get away from coronavirus' when holidaying in the village I live in last summer. As if holiday spots and their communities were somehow immune.

@rowenaravenclawthesecond i don’t think they leave them. They just don’t have any.

I live in a beautiful touristy place but also work in the industry so am biased; I LOVE to see people here enjoying the surroundings and spending their money. Doesn't mean they don't still piss me off sometimes though.

I moan at times (hue queue outside the garage in our village on Monday for example, and driving home from work any Friday from now (usually Easter) until September takes twice the winter commute time) but it is lovely to see people return. The place needs them economically and it would be mean of us not to share the lovely place we live in with others.

Unless you are making money off tourists, which many locals aren't, then generally it is a pain. Not everybody has a cafe/shop/burger stall. Nurses, teachers, farmers etc live in tourist areas too. The increased people and traffic is generally a pain, to be frank.

Tourist money doesn't just benefit the owners of souvenir shops and cafes etc., though. One, two or more steps removed, the money still trickles through. The farmers you mention: don't they supply any of the food establishments that depend on tourist trade? What if you're a car mechanic whose exclusive customer base is locals.... BUT some of them can maybe only afford to buy your services because of their earnings from their holiday cottage?

I've said it before on similar threads, but I live in a very untouristy part of the West Midlands region; however, we have a lot of motorways around us, with multiple service stations, which employ a lot of people, whose (taxed) earnings help to boost the local economy. Who do you think is stopping off to use all of those services and spending money there? Not people who live within 40 miles of them - it's almost exclusively people passing through on long journeys, many of whom will be tourists.

I hate shameful tourist behaviour as much as any half-decent person, but when it comes to the well-behaved tourists, surely it's a case of either accepting that you live somewhere beautiful (and enjoying living there permanently yourself) or moving somewhere horrible/boring, where neither you nor any tourists will enjoy the surroundings.

Just as I benefit greatly from our Midlands motorway network, which I accept also draws a lot of motorists wanting to travel quickly and efficiently through the country, but which therefore can get greatly congested and jammed during peak holiday/commuting times. People living permanently in beautiful places like Cornwall, Norfolk, most of Wales and the Highlands neither have to put up with motorway through-traffic nor benefit themselves from speedy travel on motorways either. A lot of things are a trade-off, wherever you live.

I’m from West Wales, lived in central London for ten years then came home a few years ago to live near some of the best bits of Cardigan Bay and tourists are the same wherever you go. I get the same rage when I’m stuck behind a campervan with an inexperienced driver at the wheel, who has to brake every time they go around a corner, or drive at half the speed during commuting hours as I did when I got to the exit of Bond St tube station in the morning to be confronted by slow moving tourists blocking the entire bastard pavement. Same goes for four abreast cyclists whether they’re on boris bikes in Westbourne Grove or electric bikes on a B-road!

In London I used to love waking up at dawn in the summer and wandering around the touristy spots before the hoards descended, and in West Wales I wait until winter and enjoy the area when it’s less busy.
I wouldn’t complain necessarily about tourists but when they won’t park in car parks to save a few pounds and block roads with their oversized mobile homes it does grate a bit.

Whoever mentioned second homes though, I completely agree. Second homeowners contribute the bare minimum and negatively affect communities, they really are the worst. Odd thing is though that I saw it happening in London too. There are parts of the areas I lived in Paddington and Bayswater that have properties occupied a few weeks every year and contribute nothing to the communities there either. Properties usually available for renters are bought up and left empty, while those who need to rent are pushed further and further out.

The town I work in relies on tourism to keep businesses open, and the town's and villages around here are the same, the only time it gets annoying is when people behave like arseholes and impact on me or my job, like when the bus can't get through because of inconsiderate parking, or when people are drunk and behaving like idiots, but we've got some locals like that too, so it just really increases the frequency as there's more of them.
I tend to miss the hustle and bustle due to the hours I work, so it doesn't affect me as much as it might.

I agree 50 % of my block of flats had been utterly empty since Covid. It’s mad. I live in w1
I don’t know why people think it’s worse in seaside towns. In London it’s relentless. It’s not just summer

My family have lived here for generations.
When they made their roots here tourism wasn't really a thing.

It is our home why should we move so that others can have a weeks holiday

Times change, though. Nobody is saying that you should have to move, but it would be an option if you hate enough what your village/town/city has become. It would be the same if your ancestors/grandparents/parents/you even had lived in a pleasant village/small town for centuries, but which has now become a huge, dirty, crime-ridden city. The difference for them is that it's permanent - not just for the summer. You can either stay there for the good and bad or, if you can no longer stand it, you always have the option to move, if you choose to.

I'm in no way accusing you of being a racist or xenophobe whatsoever, but there are plenty of British people (throughout the whole country) who resent 'forriners' coming to the country - or their families/ancestors from several generations back.

They may have brought with them customs, cultures, religious beliefs/practices, whatever that the people who consider themselves 'proper, indigenous British' do not like, and wish they would 'go back where they came from and take back with them'. If you take it to its logical conclusion, there are a number of disturbing parallels in the two (on the surface very diverse) outlooks.

bold fail there