Has all this changed your opinion of tourist spots you used to love?

[Makeitgoaway]

There's one in particular that we used to visit for a few days several time a year. The last time was January and under normal circumstances we'd have been there this week.

Obviously we have no intention or desire to go there until the relevant restrictions are lifted but the venom being directed towards tourists and visitors by people fortunate enough to live in beautiful places is making me think it won't be comfortable there, we won't be welcome for a long time after restrictions are lifted. I understand people are scared etc but they also love to see us and our money in happier times and, I assume, do want tourists to return at some point.

Will you be rushing back to your favourite places to support their economies or will you wait?

Excuse bad typing. Tourists will all be as welcome as always later!

@ThursdayLastWeek of course I wouldn’t! I’m just worried that the locals will think lockdown has been lifted too soon and decide we shouldn’t be there. I’ve seen posts on Twitter and other social media from locals saying they don’t want to see tourists this year and that worries me.

Some of the behaviour from touristy spot dwellers has been poor but then some of the behaviour of the public ignoring lockdown has been poor too.
However I wonder if any of the people who live in these jealously guarded tourist destination spots have any idea of what its like in London and big cities at the moment? The cities aren't exactly falling over themselves with spare beds in ICU either. There were food shortages to begin with, there are still long queues to get in shops and many people have no outside space at all. There seems to be a misconception that everyone has everything they need in the cities and we have a very young population with no one at risk. No one is having this easy.

Its the same when people living in the countryside say that there are no homes that their children can afford to buy. Its EXACTLY the same in the cities. Yes, there are more job opportunities but not one that pays enough to buy a shed in London for the young people. They have to move away from family too.
We are all in this together and should be looking to the future positively.

I know I’m very aware of how terrifying it must be to live in a highly populated area right now. My heart goes out to the folk that can’t avoid being in public, or to exercise it’s just awful.

I’m also very aware how lucky we are in Cornwall not to be like that now.
But I’m very aware this might just be a stage, and that our future might be very similar to your present very soon.

Also, with regards second home owners. I dislike them ANYWHERE tbh. I’m not trying to imply Cornwall has it worse than elsewhere - it’s shit wherever it happens.

I live on the edge of the Lake District. I'm wondering if the social media group you belong to is the 'I Love The Lake District' group on FB. If so, it's full of absolute arses who love making snide remarks about tourist. I joined in when we were moving here, then swiftly unjoined!

It's perfectly possible to strongly discourage visitors without being offensive about it, but every area has its share of belligerent twats. Obviously you can holiday where you like OP, but refusing to visit somewhere you want to go, just because some people were arseholes is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

I don’t live in Cornwall, but some close friends do. They work for the NHS and they have been appalled at the entitlement, selfishness, ignorance and stupidity of a minority of visitors from ‘up country’.

These idiots have displayed a complete lack of awareness that Cornwall has one proper hospital in the entire county, and with a large elderly population that hospital could so easily be overwhelmed. Add to that long standing resentment of second-home owners pricing local people out of the market and it’s easy to see why some people are angry.

Well it seems the police in Wales agree it is not illegal to use second homes - they are having trouble ‘enforcing’ non-existent laws and make people undertake unnecessary travel to leave a second home once they arrive. If there are no laws against it then they shouldn’t be trying to enforce anything!

I am sure these GPs will agree with Trump’s immigration ban.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-52055456

Notinmyrealname when I lived in a picturesque seaside town I recognised that I was privileged to live there. I didn’t resent people who could only benefit from what I had for a couple of weeks a year when I had it for 52 weeks. I was glad I was able to enjoy the beach to myself on a windswept November day. But it was not my right to have a nice quiet beach.

I have also seen enough deprived ex-tourist seaside towns that exist in many parts of the country to know that you can’t live off sand. Indeed many of the most deprived communities in the UK are ex-tourist seaside towns.

if you do live year round in a scenic/tourist area, where do you go on holiday? Genuine question

a different scenic/tourist area. My mother lives in one. She goes on holiday to places like Scotland, Ireland, the Channel Islands, Greece, Italy, France.

Is it the same abroad? I presume so.... Nice tourists OK ish (tolerated) Second home owners frowned upon

No idea. Maybe it doesn't cause the same difficulties though. We are concreting over the countryside (including in scenic spots, there won't be anything to see soon) to build houses, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of second homes. The ethics are very suspect in the UK. It doesn't appeal to me anyway, I like going to different places and am not keen on self-catering either.

It's like backing an animal into a corner isn't it? Tourists pouring into an area at a time that it could literally kill the and their loved ones. But would you shun your cat forevermore for lashing out while under stress? And besides, the vitriol is directed towards irresponsible selfish fuckers, not regular tourists who respect the area and it's inhabitants.

It's not venum, it's fear. Fear that you will take a scarce bed in a hospital, you may bring and spread a virus, use resources that are already stretched. Increase the population to levels where social distancing is more difficult. These people may be blessed to live in these areas however theybare not always so idyllic out of season.
These are their homes and, like most people, they will, quite rightly, defend their homes. At the moment you are not welcome because they cannot support your presence, if you choose never to return then so be it but it isn't personal except to those selfish few that feel it's okay to do whatever they wish.

We are concreting over the countryside (including in scenic spots, there won't be anything to see soon) to build houses, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of second homes.
This, and often developers get away with as little affordable housing and housing association housing as possible.

it's not venum, it's fear. Fear that you will take a scarce bed in a hospital, you may bring and spread a virus, use resources that are already stretched. Increase the population to levels where social distancing is more difficult
This.
Someone up thread said cities aren't full of spare ICU beds, but the difference is city healthcare is designed for the number of people.
Rural healthcare is designed around the permanent population.

Neither have lots of spare capacity, but the rural area is up shit creek without a paddle if they start having city folk pile in because their services are already stretched without the added extras.

I live in a tourist destination and wouldn't dream of going to another if I was more likely than the residents to be carrying a potentially lethal virus. Especially if there was a possibility that in doing so I would stretch their meagre resources which are rationed out to accommodate residents.

I’m using the lockdown to brush up on my old Welsh so I don’t stick out quite so much. It’s fun actually - I’m using the speaksomewelsh app to build my confidence. I had a lot of welsh 30 years ago but it was always a second language and now I can’t speak at all. Can’t find the vocab.

They never liked you. You're just seeing it more blatantly now.
It's been too much for me. We have a holiday home but I'll turn it into an air b n b instead. There will be a lot of demand for uk holidays I am guessing, for the next few years, if travel abroad is unpredictable.

Devon and Cornwall will be fine as I’d say a fair bit of daily tourism comes from those living in the counties. Popular places are avoided in the summer and swapped to more secret places due to swamping but I’d happily return if numbers were less.

I think the annoyance towards second home owners has been a long time coming. The maj of residents get nothing from second home ownership.We get far less investment in services than those up country which is hugely unfair( school funding and public transport in particular)and during the summer all the areas we like to use get swamped. Most of us don’t own second homes and are simply trying to work and live on lower salaries.

Most second home owners don’t live down here so if they struggle it’ll be people from elsewhere suffering.

That said there will be no venom as only a minority would let their annoyance manifest itself into nasty behaviour . Also when out and about you don’t know who is a second home owner and who isn’t.

I’d love a couple of quieter summers but don’t think it will happen. Sadly I think this area will be heaving due to lack of confidence in booking abroad.

We get far less investment in services than those up country which is hugely unfair( school funding and public transport in particular)

Why? Funding for these come from council tax and second home owners in Cornwall pay full council tax without using those services.

I would agree also that domestic tourism will increase. Figment is there any requirement to speak Welsh in order to buy in popular areas? I think that was a requirement in the West of Ireland years ago (requirement to speak Irish not Welsh obviously!) No idea how it was enforced or whether it is still a requirement. Exactly the same problem, wealthy non Irish driving the locals out of the property market.

I’m still looking forward to heading off to my favourite coastal towns next year (hopefully). And I completely understand why residents “privileged” enough to live in these beautiful places were angry when their towns were descended upon by hoards of selfish people who were actively going against what was advised. If my town had been overwhelmed by second home owners and tourists (very unlikely) I would be pissed off too, especially if it meant they were bringing an infectious virus with them which we didn’t have the hospital spaces to cope with. As to calling these residents privileged, that’s a huge assumption on your part. Privileged to have nice scenery close by maybe, but many seaside towns have high levels of poverty. Many of the locals you see on your trips aren’t waking up to sea views every day, some towns have so many second homes that off season the towns are ghost towns with local workers living on the outskirts in far less scenic towns and commuting in. The privileged people are the ones who can afford a second home.

I agree it would put me off visiting. I think it’s part of the rise of the angry stay at home stasi tho. This situation has brought out some really quite nasty behaviour.

For heavens sake. Coronavirus is in the lovely country towns and villages already. The reason for discouraging visitors is that the NHS facilities are small and not local in these places, and with limited beds. There are only limited doctors for the population size. There are no A and Es for miles. We know for a certainty that there is health rationing, so you risk their families, but also your own, if you go.

THAT IS WHY people should stay at home. All this is not difficult to understand if you can lift the chip of your shoulders.

I think you're missing the point @onlinelinda I don't think anyone on here has said that people should be able to freely visit these places at the moment. What has been said (repeatedly) is that for some people this has been the catalyst to reveal more long held attitudes towards tourists. That attitude has been shown over and over again on here.

Not everywhere is like this, I've lived in a number of tourist towns and cities and for the most part they embrace that and everything that it brings, there are other places which don't. I get the second home anger and share the belief that this is wrong, but generic hostility (direct and implied) to anyone visiting the area is twatty and has certainly stopped me from going back to those areas both as a tourist and to work.

I believe empty but furnished homes can have a 50% council tax discount.

I believe empty but furnished homes can have a 50% council tax discount.

I didn’t think that was the case any more. MIL had a second home and I’m pretty sure she paid full council tax