Tourists

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classic33

Leg End Member
One relatively new feature over the past two or so years is the appearance of the flag-wavey tour guide. Maybe I've just not noticed before, but the groups are certainly larger and there are more Chinese tourists who probably feel more comfortable with a guide.

I like to imagine that the guides make stuff up, like pointing to Greggs and saying that's where King Alfred used to buy his steak slices, or that the cathedral is being converted into an Ikea.



I will not have a word said against Basingstoke!

I think I've told the story before on CC about my slightly surreal visit to the Basingstoke Tourist Information office so won't repeat it here, but it all went a bit Royston Vasey.
It can really help if the guide actually knows the area/buildings they are taking people round.
 

Cycleops

Legendary Member
Location
Accra, Ghana
Meanwhile the British tourists in Spain, or more correctly, one Britain is complaining there are too many Spaniards in her Spanish hotel.
How dare they stay in their own hotels!
http://www.travelweekly.com.au/arti...nish-hotel-has-too-many-spanish-people-in-it/
 

rich p

ridiculous old lush
Location
Brighton
Brighton gets its fair share throughout the year. I like the buzz it adds.
Don't know if it's any more than when I was chasing young French students around in the summer of '76. Bit long in the tooth to do it in this latest incarnation of hot summer lust...
 

marinyork

Resting in suspended Animation
Location
Logopolis
Few tourists in Sheffield. Of those are mostly for business conferences or Chinese. Increased a lot the last ten years from nothing to current levels. A much larger permanent Chinese population exists which is also something that has grown greatly the last five years.
 

perplexed

Guru
Location
Sheffield
Few tourists in Sheffield. Of those are mostly for business conferences or Chinese. Increased a lot the last ten years from nothing to current levels. A much larger permanent Chinese population exists which is also something that has grown greatly the last five years.

This is true. There is also a bit of spike in tourism (just from my unofficial observations) around the time of the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible.

Sheffield city centre is gradually getting better as more of the horrible buildings which went up after the Luftwaffer's re-arrangement of it are now being pulled down. The cities' best selling point from a tourism perspective I guess is its incredible accessibility to the Peak District.
 

Dave 123

Legendary Member
What do you mean by "stupid"?

Total lack of road sense.
Stepping off pavements backwards without looking, to take a photo
Blocking an approaching bus for a photo in the middle of the road
Generally a huge dynamic risk to all other road and pavement users

Kind of stupid.

Edit- when there are 20x groups of 30/40 people in a small area of town at once all equally clueless it’s very trying.
 
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Dirk

If 6 Was 9
Location
Watchet
The one observation I've made is that I've never bumped into an American tourist in North Devon.
Cornwall, Dorset, Wiltshire & Dartmoor/South Devon, yes.
Maybe we are off the radar?
 

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
Total lack of road sense.
Stepping off pavements backwards without looking, to take a photo
Blocking an approaching bus for a photo in the middle of the road
Generally a huge dynamic risk to all other road and pavement users

Kind of stupid.

Edit- when there are 20x groups of 30/40 people in a small area of town at once all equally clueless it’s very trying.
They're on holiday, first time to UK, almost certainly first time outside their own country. All they know is what is acceptable behaviour in their own country as that's all they have ever experienced

Cut them some slack
 

NorthernDave

Never used Über Member
[QUOTE 5354307, member: 9609"]during the summer months the once wonderful Northumberland coast as far north as Bamberg has now been lost to the tourist hoards. been really bad this year[/QUOTE]

While acknowledging that we're part of the problem, in the decade we've been holidaying in Beadnell the village has more than doubled in size, with nearly all of the "new homes" being holiday lets.

While it's still significantly quieter than say the Lakes or Yorkshire Dales, it is very much busier.
 

Dave 123

Legendary Member
They're on holiday, first time to UK, almost certainly first time outside their own country. All they know is what is acceptable behaviour in their own country as that's all they have ever experienced

Cut them some slack


They get plenty of slack from all the locals including me.
Come and live and work amongst it for a week.

It’s not just the tourists, it’s the coaches that bring them too. The council has no provisions for them parking. So every lay by within a 5 mile radius of town is filled with coaches, once they’re full.....

The problems of a heritage honeypot!
 
OP
OP
Bollo

Bollo

Failed Tech Bro
Location
Winch
The one observation I've made is that I've never bumped into an American tourist in North Devon.
Cornwall, Dorset, Wiltshire & Dartmoor/South Devon, yes.
Maybe we are off the radar?
That’s a good observation. Despite all the stuff that Merkins like (History! Quaint!! Religion!!!) most of our visitors are from Europe and increasingly China and Japan.

No special evidence and almost certainly an oversimplification, but I get the impression that most Americans tend to follow tick-list tours of Europe, rather than focus on a particular country or region. So for the Uk, they tend to hit one or more of that London, Stonehenge, Bath, Oxford and Edinburgh and bugger the rest.
 

nickyboy

Norven Mankey
They get plenty of slack from all the locals including me.
Come and live and work amongst it for a week.

It’s not just the tourists, it’s the coaches that bring them too. The council has no provisions for them parking. So every lay by within a 5 mile radius of town is filled with coaches, once they’re full.....

The problems of a heritage honeypot!

Chinese tourists (I presume it is mainly Chinese you are talking about) spend more than £1bn in UK every year and it's growing fast. All this goes into the UK economy, creating jobs for locals

Maybe the residents of a heritage honeypot like Cambridge should put more pressure on their elected representatives to sort out stuff like parking as Cambridge no doubt benefits from a decent chunk of that £1bn
 
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