luring with fuel

One of the interesting side-effects of our current oil crisis is the unique approach that some businesses are taking by luring their customers in with the promise of cheap gas. At first, the ideas were pretty basic - spend a night at our hotel and we'll give you a $10 gas card. Then, cities like Branson went one step further and actually offered a limited time $1.99 unleaded gas promotion for visitors. A number of car manufacturers are now offering gas "guarantees" that state that they will cover the cost of any gallon that rises over $2.99 for the first year. What remains to be seen is if any of these tactics are actually working. According to all major sources, we continue to fall into a recession as each day passes, so my guess is that these "band-aid" ideas are seen as little more than gimmicks to the common consumer.

But you have to admit that it is a sad state of affairs when tourists are making their travel plans based on what kind of gas discounts they can get instead of what kind of hotel deals they can find. What is also sad is the negative effect that this is having on *all* industries - not just tourism.

tourism needs recycling

It's difficult to make a living in a tourist town. That's one of my latest realizations. Sure, everybody told me about the low wages and the seasonal work, but seeing as I work from the internet, I didn't think it would affect me. Unfortunately, the limited approach to industry also spills over onto the net. Every business in this town seems to operate within a very thin field of expectation - a rather stale paradigm, in my opinion.

Even some of the more common business strategies (such as trying to offer something new to the town) are absent here. Instead, everyone rides on each other's coat-tails. Everyone complains about the high turnover rate of new businesses, and yet every year we get a rash of new motels, bed & breakfasts, art galleries, and knick-knack Ozark shops "specializing" in crude and funny t-shirts.

On the off-chance that they do attempt something new, it is generally a cheap facsimile of something that was profitable in another town. Sometimes I think it has to do with a lack of "new blood", or people with fresh ideas. Part of the problem has to do with the fact that most of the people with fresh ideas aren't the ones with the funding to implement them. The other problem is that trying to get anything approved by the local city council is nearly impossible. Such is life in a small town...

if you don't like it, go home

Living in a small tourist town, we've grown accustomed to seeing strangers and hearing their conversation while we spend time in town. In most cases, they are discussing what they have purchased from gift shops, what they're going to eat next, or what local landmarks are still on their to-see list. For the holidays, our town just had our annual Christmas parade and it was lots of fun. Lots of tourists came in from miles around to see it.

There were floats, marching bands, classic automobiles, and even Ronald McDonald. Those in the parade threw out candy and toys to the children as they passed. It was nothing groundbreaking or spectacular, but it was good clean fun for a town of 2500 people and our guests. unfortunately, we were standing next to a group of morons from some nearby town, and all they could manage to do was badmouth everything as it passed.

Now, I'm as guilty as the next guy at making underhanded comments under my breath or to my wife, but I don't say them out loud for all to hear. And if my family and the people around me are enjoying it, I certainly don't spoil the evening for them. Plus, if I was having a miserable time at a parade, guess what? I would leave.

Our parade wasn't perfect. Sure, I noticed the occasional breaks in the line that caused us to wonder if the parade was over or not, and I thought it was a bit cheesy that some of the "floats" looked just like flatbed trailers with Christmas lights on them, but for a small town, it was still very nice.

If you want a Macy's style parade, get your family on a plane and fly to some big city.

uptown saturday night

My wife and I have been watching the DVD collection of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservation" series and we find it absolutely fascinating when he visits foreign countries with their old world food markets and street vendors. I remember seeing something similar in New Orleans at the French Market, and it is something that I would love to see here in my own hometown. We do have a farmer's market and an art/craft market, but there isn't much to it, and it just doesn't feel very "cultured".

I was really offered an opportunity to take a look at what they do in St. Augustine, Florida for their Uptown Saturday Night events. In addition to some of the best St. Augustine shopping, the event promises interactive artist experiences and live music. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I dig the fact that St. Augustine is the oldest city in America, with its rich Spanish explorer heritage. Although I've never thought of myself as being a Florida type of person (I don't dig the beach that much), I could definitely see myself in St. Augustine, as it truly has lots of character and lots to do.

Their Uptown festival takes place on the last Saturday of every month, with dates remaining for this year on November 24th and December 29th.

overrun by tourists!

There is a HUGE craft fair happening this weekend near my hometown. The traffic in town has been absolutely horrible and its times like this that I really despise living in a tourist town. It's something that I've been wrestling with since we moved here. While I love the town, the history and the architecture, the frequent influx of outsiders can be a real drag. I love the fact that there is lots to do here, and I realize that much of this is due to the tourism industry, but I still don't have to like it. The last thing I need is for my new hometown to become another Branson Missouri. Not that Branson is that bad - it's just not my idea of a good place to live.

Tourism is an interesting industry. It's one of the few industries that has no concept of internal competition or oversaturation, which is a fancy way of saying that you can never have too much of it. While the rest of the nation is dealing with over-population, global warming and trying to curb natural devastation, much of the tourism industry is still following the belief that "if you build it, they will come".

second guessing "home"

I've moved many times in my past - perhaps too many times. Although I'm fairly satisfied wit the town that we now call home, I can't help but second guess whether we made the right decision at times. Not that there are glaring imperfections with our current home town (aside from the local politics), but I do often wonder if we made the decision too quick.

I met a fellow transplant to the area this week, and we were discussing the tourism market and I was complaining a bit about the excessive tourism at times. He immediately made me feel like something of a fraud for calling this place my new "home", and said something along the lines of, "well it sounds like you should be looking for another home town". Are things really that black and white? Am I not allowed to hold any contempt for the town we have chosen to live in? Am I supposed to just accept everything about it, no questions asked? What about any hopes for improvement? I'm not one of those people who moves to anew place and immediately hopes for it be more like the place that they left. I just see opportunities for improvement here and there. Is that such a crime?

Maybe we should have kept looking. How long do I need to live in a place to either accept it or reject it as my new home? What is the appropriate "grace period" for such an evaluation?

Part of my feelings of despair probably have to do with high expectations,and perhaps some misleading city branding. I was led to believe that residents were valued as much as the tourists, and I often wonder if that is really the case. There were other towns that we looked at in other states that had similar dependencies on tourism. One such town was called Montreat and it was located in North Carolina. From what I could tell, they get much of their tourism from business travelers, and as the name might suggest, from professional retreats. It didn't really have a downtown area with shops, although Black Forest is very close by, and Asheville is pretty close, too.

I was taken by the fact that Montreat was tucked away in this gorgeous mountain valley and there was this awesome historic college campus with unbelievable stone buildings in the center of town. There was also a very nice park that tied into hiking trails and camping. It seemed like a really cool place, until we saw the prices of the homes for sale. We couldn't touch them. It surprised me that it would be so expensive, being located in the middle of nowhere. I could understand if we were talking about homes along the Eastern coast, as I have noticed that in areas like Beaufort NC real estate prices are fairly steep. But Montreat is in the Western half of the state, closer to Tennessee.

The residents that I spoke with seemed happy with their decision to live there, but who knows how they really feel about the tourism and their dependence on outsiders for their town's well being. Those aren't the types of opinions usually shared with outsiders. I should know - I'm guilty of hiding these details myself when I get questions from out of town visitors. You've got to be careful what you say and who you say it to. It's difficult to really discuss with others the effects of tourism on our local economy, and if you make any kind of negative statements about tourism, you're hitting too close to home. After all, many of the residents here survive off of the tourism industry. Threatening their life blood with a mere differing opinion can cause sparks.

So I'm left trying to deal with my emotions and queries on my own, or with other residents who I know to already feel much the same as I do. It's not that I'm totally against tourism. I think that like anything else, it is good to have a balance of these types of things in any economy. Our economy is heavily weighted towards it, though - you might even say that it is our *only* industry. As such, I often see decisions made that don't seem to take into account the voice of residents who don't rely on tourism for their daily bread. Seeing as I have chosen to make this my new hometown, I have to admit that it worries me. If that makes me less of a "local" because I'm not chipper about everything going on around here, so be it.

so far, the angels have been angels

Aside from frequent buzzing over our heads by police helicopters, our visit this weekend by the Hells Angels has been pretty benign. Sure, they look scary enough, but so far we've seen no reason to fear any of them. In fact, some of the locals who were so "up in arms" when they heard about our pending visit are now suggesting that we are experiencing the "lighter side of Hell" - angels who are older, more settled down, with families and *gasp* children, who perhaps have successfully survived a bout or two of drug rehabilitation. Whatever. They're not here to terrorize us, so they're not.

I think they're just here for a good time, and I have a hard time believing that any group would ride from as far away as places like New York and Maine just to start trouble in our sleepy little town of 2,500 people. Even the non-angel tourists seem to be getting along with them.

I'll admit that I'm not planning on spending lots of time downtown this weekend, but we don't generally go downtown when there are lots of tourists around, anyway.