||| FROM UZEK SUSOL |||
I’m pondering & looking to understand the push for more Tourism & the people that say we (year round locals) need them to survive. We (year round locals) have no available/affordable rentals, most went to vacation rentals, ferries are jammed/difficult for locals to travel for medical appointments off island/supplies/work related off island runs, town is getting to be like Disneyland in summer, jammed. All of the above makes locals strain under the above weight.
I understand that if you chose to make your business is tourism geared then you need tourists but if you as a tourist geared business can’t support yourself, need to start go fund me’s to sustain a tourist geared business, struggle to find employee housing, put your employees in tents & camp trailers littered about or have to bring transient employees from off island then I’m just not understanding why you would keep putting all your eggs in that basket then push for more tourism. How do tourists affect you in a positive way if you are a carpenter, plumber, contractor, electrician, roofer, concrete/foundation installer, septic installer, well driller, carpet/tile installer, teacher, daycare worker, auto mechanic, marine mechanic, airplane mechanic, equipment operator, garbageman, county employee, truck driver, landscaper, painter, hardware store employee, tree service, caretaker, medical professional, dentist, chiropractor, physical therapist, utilities employee, therapist, hair stylist, office worker, accountant, bookkeeper, police officer, firefighter, doctor, nurse, paramedic, vet, massage therapist, the list goes on…
Curious to what peoples thoughts are. No hate for the tourists, they are here & will always be, we are all tourists at one time or another in someone else’s Community. Just wondering if more tourists & more tourist-based business is the answer to our local Community sustainability?
- What are the advantages of tourism to Orcas Island for the year round locals?
- What are the disadvantages of tourists for the year round locals?
- What do tourists do to make Orcas a better place or bring to Orcas?
- What is the percentage of year round locals that benefit or rely on their income from tourists that don’t reach out to their community for financial support due to lack of income form the tourism based industry?
Jan 2024 WSF stated in their WSF Service Contingency Plan: “Washington State Ferries (WSF) has released its new “Ferry Service Contingency Plan,” which details how it will move forward providing service with a lack of vessels and an “unprecedented” staffing shortage. The goal is to make ferry schedules more reliable, but it comes with reduced service. The significant challenges that the current service reductions present to WSF customers is real, especially those who live in ferry-dependent communities and rely on WSF as their only mode of transportation”.
For local businesses that rely on tourist based seasonal income, is now a good time to look into putting some eggs in a local sustainable basket as WSF has said the ferry service will only get worse until 2030?
I don’t think the situation with the ferries even crosses the minds of people in the tourist industry here. Gotta sell that pottery, gotta sell those T-shirts and trinkets, watch whales from a half mile away and rent e-bikes on roads with no shoulders and dump trucks full of rock. Should I mention that our fire department is going thru some “things” this year? Let’s go back to “Less is More and More is Less”. Slow down the San Juan advertising and turn some of the hundreds of vacation rentals into rentals for people that really want to stay here permanently. GO LOCALS.
I agree with the comments by RR Davis above. The tourist industry here, aided and abetted by the Visitors Bureau with the use of SJC tax dollars, is astonishingly myopic. There is no such thing as “sustainable tourism” under the current regulatory regime. We have to find ways to reduce visitation in order to restore our basic standards of living. If a few junk shops, a few restaurants, and a few kayak rental places go bust, it doesn’t matter to me at all. Operators of tourist-oriented businesses are simply here to “extract value” from these islands like the lime miners and clearcut foresters of days past.
I will chime in to disagree with RR Davis and David Bowman . My kayak tour business has operated on the island for more than 40 years. We do not rent kayaks, so we employ a number of guides every summer to ensure that local private and public property and wildlife are respected by our guests. Many of our employees have gone on to start their own unrelated businesses, raise families, serve on non-profit boards, and otherwise contribute to the island community. My business regularly contributes to many local fundraisers — mainly for educational and environmental issues. I like to think that our impact has been net positive.
While my business depends on tourists, we do not directly promote tourism. Our marketing is focused on people who have already decided to vacation on the island. Yes, we have joined both the Orcas Chamber of Commerce and the county Visitors Bureau. I have expressed to both of these organizations that my business has no need for increased tourism. In fact, increased tourism has a negative impact on my business. We are not myopic in any sense. I know that my business depends on the continuing viability of of the local marine environment, wildlife, and a vibrant community.
My opinion is that the only way to control the number of visitors to the island is to regulate the number of transient beds available (hotel, B&B, and vacation rentals). Most people will not travel here if they do not know where they will sleep. Of course, this has been a challenging and contentious issue for years. I hope our community and county leadership will face this issue and make the hard decisions necessary to create a sustainable economy as we move forward.
Uzek’s ruminations upon tourism got me thinking about the sociological history of travel/tourism and I came across this piece in Noema that had some interesting points to make: https://www.noemamag.com/nice-view-shame-about-all-the-tourists/
It has been posited that tourism (non-essential travel), which is said to comprise more than 10% of global GDP and is estimated to generate 8% of global CO2, originated as religious pilgrimages. But those simple, ritual pilgrimages to a sacred spring or grove have mutated and metastasized into hordes of tourists standing in knee deep salt water in the Piazza San Marko taking selfies and posting on TikTok or waiting in line at the Anacortes ferry terminal. . . .
I would like to thank Council Member Cindy Wolf for bravely supporting limits on short-term vacation rentals on Orcas Island.
I too wish to express my appreciation to Cindy for sticking to her campaign promise, and also for the “new” council’s affirmation of limits on short-term vacation rentals.
Thank you also, Ken, for bringing up the article on tourism that was featured in Noem… a very illuminating read.
Noema (Henry Wismayer) 1/09/24– Nice View. Shame About All The Tourists
“Today, we are witnessing this endless tug-of-war between selfish desire and moral doubt culminate in the whispered sentiment, at once covetous and perverse, of tourists in an age of collapse: See it now before it’s gone.”
Cindy Wolf’s vacation rental cap did absolutely zero to slow down tourism. All it did was increase the value of the current VR permits.
Dan– the new county council’s adoption of limits on VRs, did indeed, as you state, increase the value of existing VRs. But, considering the fast paced growth in the number of VRs that we were experiencing throughout the county at that time, it also, by virtue of limiting the number of future VRs, is responsible for slowing down tourism growth by limiting lodging. Caps on VRs was a good start in an effort to curb over-tourism and my hat’s off to the futuristic thinking of the current county council in doing so. Unless it was your dream to personally invest in more VRs, this was a win-win for those on both sides of the aisle.
All politicians run their campaigns based on the promise of change but as soon as they’re elected it’s just more of the same. This was a refreshing start by a more progressive thinking council than we’ve seen since the last women majority council 25 years or so ago.
Like Japan, like the San Juans, like everywhere… nowhere is exempt from the destructive societal transformations that take place in small resort destination communities as a result of tourism without limits.
“The purpose-built tourist attraction was an artificial product to be consumed in the very places where the real thing is free as air.” What was left, he claimed, was merely a soulless residue of reality: “The American tourist in Japan looks less for what is Japanese than for what is Japanesey.”
Noema (Henry Wismayer) 1/09/24– Nice View. Shame About All The Tourists
https://www.noemamag.com/nice-view-shame-about-all-the-tourists/