Tourists exodus today relieved

[justasking111]

Well it's over today the tsunami of tourists will be gone.

We have never experienced such, rudeness, aggressive behaviour from them as we have this summer. Our businesses have limped along short staffed, been abused, threatened as have locals. The littering has been something else.

I know everyone has had a bad year but so have the Welsh our lockdowns harder and longer than others.

We still wear masks in shops fgs

So hopefully you all had good holidays but glad of a bit of peace now

@herethereandeverywhere

So pleased I don't holiday in these places - could not bear to be spending my money in places full of such disrespectful unfriendly whiny bleating folk.

I had a wonderful holiday in Greece this summer. I'll continue to spend my money outside of the UK. So much more enjoyable and far better value.

Yep. I've been abroad twice this year for holiday. The local businesses were so happy today have customers after last year.

British tourism has missed an opportunity, could have shown British people thst UK holidays cab be good, but no, they ripped people off and moaned about them coming to 'their' town.... without tourists these struggling coastal resorts will suffer. Most of them are in disrepair already.

It's that attitude again. They should be happy and grateful that you condescended yourself to visit their shitty little village. Have you any idea how repellant that sounds?

I don't holiday in the UK
The hotels are shoddy and overpriced
The attractions are shoddy and overpriced
The local restaurants are (mostly) shoddy and overpriced (apart from an incredible restaurant I ate in near Loch lomond, it was absolutely amazing and the staff were welcoming!)
I do city breaks to explore our lovely island, but I have learnt not to waste my money on holidays here.
I treat everyone how I would like to be treated, I tip well, I park considerably etc.
I have been made to feel like an inconvenience too many times though. We'll take your cash, now fuck off attitude
Oh. And I happen to live in a tourist destination

There’s no point moaning though, just because you happen to live in a seaside town and there’s been more visitors than usual this summer. This year is a one-off (obviously) . I doubt they’ll be back.

What’s more worrying to me is, if we have experienced the more belligerent end of tourism within the U.K. this year, well, where do we normally export these people to? Why is it ok for them to be vile in Spain or wherever, but not in Wales? If anything, we should be dealing with these issues at a societal level and banning the worst type of tourist from going abroad (in the same way as football hooligans can be banned). Not anticipating the day they will bugger off elsewhere again!

Also, I don’t agree that you have to live by obvious attractions such as Buckingham Palace to experience tourism in London. There are many types of tourists in London and they don’t all do the obvious things. Younger people particularly, tend to be “Instagram led.” So you see them literally posing for selfies en masse on people’s doorsteps eg. down Portobello Road. This is all year round. Some cafe will trend on Snapchat - cue an international exodus which may well bewilder locals . I remember when a cafe was trending that did some special hot chocolates. It was in Brick Lane (East London). Well my teens were off in a flash. Only to get there and find that Japanese / Chinese /Korean and you name it tourists has beaten them to it and you could hardly get down the street. That’s just one example, but it’s being replicated all over London many times every day. Something trends - whoosh! But nobody complains or even mentions “tourists” or “incomers” because this is just life and what can you do?

To the anyone moaning in Wales - just relax. Think about if you lived in a compact city such as Bath or Oxford. You’d have floods of visitors all year round, not to mention the impact of student populations coming and going.

You’ve just had one busy summer, that’s all.

The instagram thing was my exact gripe earlier in the thread. They are ginormous tosspots on another level to other tourists (we mainly get coach parties here and they can get in the way and slow things down but are definitely positive to the place- they add to it by having fun and being friendly even with language barriers and spending money)
Instagrammers walk up peoples front paths and all take the same photo of themselves with their hand behind them on someone else's front door, sitting on the front gate, smelling someone else"s roses. They do mental things like bring pristine gardening equipment with them to pose in other people's front gardens as if they're pruning stuff. I had all my peonies stolen once. They rearrange my bay trees. If you come out and say this is my garden please leave they argue with you that yoy should be grateful because theyre an influencer. The coach parties pay for teas and pub lunches. The instagrammers argue with the pub landlord that they should get the drinks and lunch free as they're such important influencers. Moaning about influencers is one of my favourite rants!

@znaika

The instagram thing was my exact gripe earlier in the thread. They are ginormous tosspots on another level to other tourists (we mainly get coach parties here and they can get in the way and slow things down but are definitely positive to the place- they add to it by having fun and being friendly even with language barriers and spending money) Instagrammers walk up peoples front paths and all take the same photo of themselves with their hand behind them on someone else's front door, sitting on the front gate, smelling someone else"s roses. They do mental things like bring pristine gardening equipment with them to pose in other people's front gardens as if they're pruning stuff. I had all my peonies stolen once. They rearrange my bay trees. If you come out and say this is my garden please leave they argue with you that yoy should be grateful because theyre an influencer. The coach parties pay for teas and pub lunches. The instagrammers argue with the pub landlord that they should get the drinks and lunch free as they're such important influencers. Moaning about influencers is one of my favourite rants!

I genuinely didn’t know this was a ‘thing’ 🤯

I was just in holiday in a Euro country and a group of what I can only assume were (princely self-proclaimed) “influencers” showed up. I think they were from Russia. People were watching on in amazement. There was three women who transformed the pool into a kind of “set” for their personal photo shoot. It was the same in the bar areas. They just waltzed in, did all this for a couple of days and then were gone.

Yes its insane. They have no idea how weird they are!! I tried to moan about them on here before but was told I was humble bragging as I obviously lived somewhere nice.

They are everywhere though and are so weird about what they do. Like if anyone else wanted to swim in that pool they'd have been wtf? This is an important shoot. We double important and no your kids can't swim here even though you're also a guest because we're influencers.

Had a wonderful holiday in Wales this year. I did feel for staff of restaurants and pubs though. Some people are just awful

Had a lovely boat ride out with DS and the chap who took us out could not have been nicer or more helpful..

Contacted them afterwards to say how great it was.

sorry - “probably self proclaimed” not “princely”

I do think SOME people in hospitality have had great ride during furlough - paid to stay home for a year and a half and plenty of opportunity to study/work elsewhere/dIY/look after children instead of paying for childcare etc.
It must be quite a shock to have to go back to work, and yes I think customers are pissed off.
Lots of us haven't been furloughed and thanks to Brexit and covid everything is super expensive (especially eating/drinking out)
Lots of restaurants are shoving in extra time slots meaning you aren't allowed to eat in a leisurely fashion and enjoy your food.
I haven't enjoyed going out as I used to, I haven't holidayed much in the UK as I usually do and nothing abroad so I am a bit bored and cranky, but it would be nice for hospitality to return to being hospital to its patrons (who will pay for their furlough/business grants for decades to come)

It must be exhausting living in an area with tourists. We went to Wales this year. My friend was overcharged in a shop. I found many grumpy locals. I just felt unwelcome.
Normally I love Wales. I presumed they were overwhelmed. I am not planning to go back anytime soon.

@nuro

I do think SOME people in hospitality have had great ride during furlough - paid to stay home for a year and a half and plenty of opportunity to study/work elsewhere/dIY/look after children instead of paying for childcare etc. It must be quite a shock to have to go back to work, and yes I think customers are pissed off. Lots of us haven't been furloughed and thanks to Brexit and covid everything is super expensive (especially eating/drinking out) Lots of restaurants are shoving in extra time slots meaning you aren't allowed to eat in a leisurely fashion and enjoy your food. I haven't enjoyed going out as I used to, I haven't holidayed much in the UK as I usually do and nothing abroad so I am a bit bored and cranky, but it would be nice for hospitality to return to being hospital to its patrons (who will pay for their furlough/business grants for decades to come)

You cannot legally work whilst on furlough

Furlough for hospitality tourism jobs zero hours meant you got laid off no furlough no redundancy. Only salaried staff were eligible . The grants the Welsh government dribbled out despite rishi paying out. Remember eat out to help out. Small businesses still fighting for that money. The Welsh government wanted a war chest, they're not going to give it up

@justasking111

Furlough for hospitality tourism jobs zero hours meant you got laid off no furlough no redundancy. Only salaried staff were eligible . The grants the Welsh government dribbled out despite rishi paying out. Remember eat out to help out. Small businesses still fighting for that money. The Welsh government wanted a war chest, they're not going to give it up

Back to my point Wales chooses not to properly invest in tourism Hence the drama every summer amongst locals

@Marni83 you're replying to the wrong post

What an unpleasant country we live in.

You cannot legally work whilst on furlough

Yes you can.

You can work for your current employer through flexible furlough (so you are a mixture of furloughed and working)
You can work for anyone other than your current employer (the one who furloughed you) whilst still receiving furlough.

[quote justasking111]@Marni83 you're replying to the wrong post[/quote]
Incorrect

The approach of the Welsh gov to this
Is indicative of their approach to tourism in wales full stop

Not willing to invest properly in infrastructure
Hence the whinging every summer

I do think SOME people in hospitality have had great ride during furlough - paid to stay home for a year and a half and plenty of opportunity to study/work elsewhere/dIY/look after children instead of paying for childcare etc.

I imagine you havent done any furlough then...
Because it comes with deep worry that you will have no job left at the end of it.
Furlough is 80% of your wage, not 100%
A llot of people have qualified for very little (see zero hours contract, temp work, seasonal work whihc actually forms a bit part of the hospitality sector).
Many people n MW (which is what we are talking about here) will have organised themselves to NOT have any childcare costs, because they couldnt afford that in the first place anyway.
Plus days and days of being stuck at home doing something that you might well not enjoyed. It wasn't a holiday, more like being an unwilling SAHM - something many women would absolutely hate.

Conclusion: they often looked for another job rather than just waiting - hence why hospitality sector is now struggling lke hell to find people to do the jobs!!

thanks to Brexit and covid everything is super expensive (especially eating/drinking out)

It might come as a surpised for you, but this has affected EVERYONE, incl hospitality workers and those 'so lucky' workers who ere on hurlough and had to live with a lower wage (80% rather than your 100%)

Makes me glad I live somewhere 'boring' that no-one would holiday in

Nothing instagramable round here unless they wanna take pics of Lidl

Instagrammers are non tippers and expect free meals and drinks because you know we're important like. Whereas in reality you cannot get their fake tan lotions out of the tablecloths, they're a necessary evil at the best of times

@justasking111

Instagrammers are non tippers and expect free meals and drinks because you know we're important like. Whereas in reality you cannot get their fake tan lotions out of the tablecloths, they're a necessary evil at the best of times

I was staying at a very nice hotel

Part way through drinks 3 people arrived with silver tents and cameras. The bar of the hotel goes directly onto a big public space and they sort of melt together- sounds odd but is great. But they were in the inside hotel bar. They bought 1 cocktail and spent an hour taking images before leaving it undrunk. They had outfit changes! No tip (USA)

They then posted endlessly on instagram over next few day implying they were staying at the hotel. They were not. The hotel has now created a residents lounge and banned photo shoots without prior permission.

Because it comes with deep worry that you will have no job left at the end of it.
Furlough is 80% of your wage, not 100%

Yup. I was working in London last week, and was chatting to one of the concierge staff at the hotel where I was staying. They had only about 10% of their rooms available, and he told me that most of the staff had lost their jobs when the furlough scheme stopped.

The hotel was blissfully empty, which was great for me, but terrible for those who were sacked.