My city (Denver) has definitely pushed tourism HARD over the last decade, and in my view it's had mixed results. If you're a developer or like a certain class of restauranteur it's been pretty great. I also imagine it's generated a decent chunk of sales and use revenue. But this focus has come at the cost of not really prioritizing making it a good place to actually live. Some QoL stuff has improved tangentially to the tourism stuff (we've got lots of fun stuff to do now), but the actually nitty gritty of daily life (public transit, usable sidewalks, basic public amenities, etc.) needs a lot of work. Our outgoing mayor gave an interview where he said that the achievement he was most proud of was "making Denver a world class city", which in his mind seemed to equate to people who don't live here wanting to visit it. I think it's pretty telling that he focused on this, rather than something like average citizen QoL or similar.

At least in my area, we absolutely get more tourists - but a lot of their money does not get spent within city limits.

They rent a house near downtown, spending all day at the lakes/beaches/attractions outside of the city, then maybe go downtown for dinner (assuming they don't cook out).

I live in a town with a resident population of about 140,000. It attracts a lot of tourists. I live in a flat with a neighbouring flat that is run as an unhosted AirBnB.

I'm sure the presence of tourists helps some shops stay open; but not the kind of shops that I use. Tourists don't use butchers, greengrocers, tool and hardware stores. They use tourist shops, which consequently multiply.

Today (as every day) I went to the shops. I got caught on the pavement/sidewalk behind a column of about 50 overseas visitors, following a tour guide. That column crashed into a similar column going in the opposite direction. This was the High Street, i.e. the main drag; it wasn't feasible to step into the carriageway, because there was traffic. In my view we have way too many tourists, and their guides don't extert enough control.

I regularly have my doorbell pressed by AirBnB guests who can't get in, and expect me to do something about it. This is frequently at night. There have been a few loud parties, including one with underage girls. I've been sworn at and threatened a few times.

The Council is trying to shut down this operator. They told the operator they were in violation of regulations (we're zoned as residential). They appealled. The Council won the appeal. I think they must have now appealled to the Secretary of State; they're still operating. This has taken over a year.

I would like it if my neighbour were the same person that was my neighbour yesterday. I have no "proper" neighbours.

The “touristification” of towns has happened time and time again, and shouldn’t be encouraged without some forms of restraint.

My small town isn’t touristy and the CBD is walkable and real and has places I go (and visitors can go, too, of course) like groceries, banks, etc.

A friend lives in a nearby slightly larger small town that is a tourist destination and his “downtown” is a sea of gift shops and restaurants and nothing much else. To get groceries and supplies he has to go to the outskirts or the next town over.

Cities loved tourists because it’s perfect taxation without representation- you can raise hotel occupancy taxes all you want and the locals don’t care because they don’t use hotels.

But if Airbnb skirts those, you lose that financial advantage.

It's double edged: if Airbnb didn't exist, more hotels would pop out, so tourist flux may be the same long term. On the other hand, in hot spots, airbnb ruins living in the city for locals: ppl specifically buy property to use it for short term rental, as result price for longterm rental is skyrocketing, incentivising ppl to move out of the city. Also, since prices are so good, even locals that already have a property are considering moving to get extra $ and as result the city becomes predominantly dominated by tourists, esp the center. Prague is a prime example of this problem, but I guess there are others