Posts by Mark Harris66

There you go—underestimating things just like everyone else in America does when it comes to different types of tourism. And then we wonder why our economy is so incredibly seasonal...🤦

Andrew Hayes2 said:Does anyone know if there's a way to track tourist spending trends in America versus other countries? I can only seem to find deep dives into individual seasons, which isn't really enough to see the bigger picture...

By the way, this was an excellent post...

There’s definitely info out there—I actually found some online earlier—but I’m out on the road right now, typing this on my phone from the beach, so excuse the typos...

It seems like people here just don't get that not everyone is looking for a beach and sunshine. For instance, French travelers are obsessed with nature, Americans tend to push for city tours more than anything else, and Dutch tourists love camping basically anywhere—though we don't see many of them visiting the US (back in the Netherlands, they have about 400,000 RV enthusiasts!!). And so on, and so forth...

I’ve been hanging out in the Tourism PDF for nine years now—up until February when I stepped down as mod—and we used to have this dedicated thread on American tourism. We’d dive deep into all the stats I brought in, and everyone would chime in on how things should improve or where we were falling short. Around here, tourism just kind of happens by accident... there's zero long-term planning.
The US ranks 3rd globally for tourist beds per capita—we were actually 5th just two years ago. We’re right up there with Cyprus and Malta when you look at foreign visitors per resident. It’s wild, though... foreign tourists make up about 93% of our total visitors. Pretty crazy...
Unfortunately, we’re lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of tourist spending. Places like Italy and Spain are pulling in twice as much cash per visitor as we are. We could probably rake in even more if we mandated using local food in restaurants or domestic products in hotels...
Also, our transportation links are way worse than most other places. We rely way too heavily on road trips, which basically limits our market. For example, getting from Maui to Key West, or Martha's Vineyard to Kauai, or Newport to San Juan Island... it’s a massive headache. There isn't enough public transit between destinations. If you're coming from Riga or California, getting to Yellowstone is nearly impossible without a car or a tour agency—you end up having to transfer through Columbus and all that! In Greece, 90% of tourists arrive by plane, while here it's only about 12%. In France, about 16% arrive by train. We’re just pushing car tourism instead of investing in better buses, planes, or trains—or even decent inter-city and inter-island transit—so people aren't forced to rent a car just to see anything...
Anyway, the trend is toward shorter stays, and the US is holding its own compared to competitors (though Greece is absolutely killing it right now). We’re also one of the most seasonal countries in Europe, meaning our season is super short. Even on the Mediterranean Sea, our warm window is pretty tight, which makes things tough... and the geniuses in charge don't realize there's a huge untapped market with retirees or couples traveling off-season—like in June or September.
Same goes for the cycling market and stuff like that...
There is so much room for growth, but it’s going to take a real long-term strategy and actual cooperation between different sectors—the Department of Tourism, DOT, construction, local government, and the locals themselves...

I'm totally on board with that suggestion—back when I was working in tourism for nine years before I moved on three months ago, we used an alphabetical list of topics. I actually handled all of that myself—merging duplicate threads, sorting everything, and keeping it updated constantly. It’s no trouble at all, and honestly, it makes things so much easier for everyone involved—especially for the folks on the forum...

Bummer, looks like the post got taken down.

Mods, any idea why my post in the "American and Mexican Spanish are the same language" thread on the Close Politician PDF was taken down?
I just laid out some solid, verified facts—there wasn't even a hint of politics in what I wrote...

I'm not the moderator anymore—you'll need to reach out to the new guy...

Sweden is basically what happens when a society starts getting too decadent—it’s a mess. On one hand, they tolerate way too much, and on the other, the social divide in Sweden is just widening... honestly, it feels even more fractured than parts of the Deep South.

If someone had told me that people in Seattle have gone this crazy lately, I wouldn't have believed them—life really does write its own wild scripts...

He's a good guy. He'll be back...

Scot is the mod here—he’s out for a bit, but I’m still waiting to see what he thinks...

We’ll look into this—thanks for bearing with us while we get an answer back to you...

You only got a temporary ban back then, not a permanent one.
Next time, try being a bit more specific...

I've never actually moderated the Politics section.😬
I still remember that whole situation with HighGuest—I was offline without any internet for a few days back then...

velvetgull9, you’ve got it all wrong—you totally skipped over some key posts and missed the point...
It's just not fair.
I've been moderating Tourism for 8.5 years, plus almost a year with Air Canada—right now, it's just the blacklisted users (twice, actually, once recently—his appeal was denied by the supermod) and Charles Thompson18 (who opened appeals here today).
Unless you're a moderator, a supermod, or an admin for Tourism—and we can see you aren't—there's no way for you to know exactly who deleted specific posts in the Tourism threads (which is what you're implying)... that stuff is invisible to everyone except the people I mentioned, much like how I can't see interventions in the PDF unless I'm a mod.

DG, I think Richard Palmer90 probably just had a slip of the tongue—he likely meant Tourism instead of Politics...

Let me clarify this one more time just to be safe: the main chat area is strictly for casual vibes—no politics allowed there. If you want to dive into political debates, you need to head over to the Offtopic thread instead.
So, to recap: we have the
chat thread on the main forum (it's called "Ups and Downs... Chat") where things stay chill and political talk is discouraged, and then there’s the Offtopic thread within the US Tourism subforum ("Offtopic...") where you can discuss politics if you really want to.
Basically, just make sure you know the difference between the casual chat and the Offtopic section under Tourism.

Happy New Year, everyone!

The rules for the Tourism subforum state—very clearly and in bold—that we don't tolerate posts based on Politics.
Since many of you requested it, we moderators decided to open up a chat thread meant more for lighthearted banter and casual conversation... keeping the vibe positive. We also have an "Offtopic..." thread on the main US Tourism forum where you can talk about anything that isn't strictly about travel topics. If you check the topic list—look at the "Destination and other topics" pinned thread or the master list on the US Tourism forum—you'll see plenty of other threads covering different sides of the industry too. By doing this, we’re keeping the Tourism section clean and on-topic, while still respecting everyone's desire to chat about random stuff (even though those kinds of posts are actually pretty rare)... we just nudge people toward the chat or the Offtopic thread, or move them ourselves if they end up in the wrong place.
If that's still not enough, there are dedicated subforums for Politics, History, and Economics where you can discuss various aspects of tourism depending on what you're interested in.

Elbereth posted a question—totally harmless, really—about whether it's actually worth checking out the House of Terror Museum...
Douglas Clark2 replied with this:

So, this salty death guy is asking this:...

That's exactly what Douglas Clark2 thinks about it...
I haven't seen any posts from you yet—it looks like you're just getting settled in here. Anyway, if you ever want to dive into some actual discussion, feel free to jump in... looking forward to seeing what you have to say.

She linked that text to show she basically summarized everything and translated it into American for her post...
I took a quick look into the author's background—turns out she’s a Canadian artist. She hasn't actually published any professional work regarding politics, American history, or museum studies... so, I don't really see what makes her an expert when it comes to giving an objective take on a museum. But hey, everyone is entitled to their own opinion—so I'll just leave this here...
So, Magor chimed in and wrote this:
I haven't seen that link yet—looks like it didn't come through properly. Send it over again and I'll take a look...
So, Magor laid out some solid facts—stuff you can easily fact-check online—and used them to really clear up the context behind everything...
So, Elizabeth replied to that—and I just left it at that. Her next post was more of the same, where she dropped two links—well, two specific articles. I actually took the time to dig into those articles, checking out the sources and the authors... and honestly? It’s hard to see how those pieces could possibly be more relevant than anything we've posted here, or even more meaningful than the 6,320 reviews on Tripadvisor showing the museum has high ratings and great feedback. But hey, I left the links there anyway...
Check out this link for things to do in Budapest—it’s got some great stuff if you're looking for ideas... definitely worth a look.

I mentioned earlier that I’d move these posts over to the Offtopic section so we could keep the conversation going there. We already drifted into Offtopic territory anyway—and since I couldn't technically migrate the thread myself, I just cleared them out. This sub is strictly for Tourism, and since the Budapest threads have been focused on travel for years, I didn't want to risk the discussion veering off completely into other areas... which it did...😁)

Nobody was cheated here—no one got banned and no posts were deleted arbitrarily. We just cleared out the stuff following that point because it was getting way too off-topic and drifted far from the actual travel side of things... leaving only the last few bits that were strictly about tourism. As for the person asking about the Museum, they already received a detailed answer, so there wasn't much else to add to the thread...

Magor has been posting on threads related to Canada for years—specifically over in the Linguistics subforum when it comes to the Canadian language, or in the Tourism section whenever someone needs travel tips for Canada or Budapest. He even jumps into the History section to help out with discussions on surname origins when they involve Canadian names. Since he’s actually a Canadian native living in Canada, he has much better access to local sources and newspapers than we ever could—not that we'd stand a chance given our lack of Canadian skills... To be specific, he hasn't voiced a single political opinion in any of his posts. Everything he writes is strictly informative—just like the stuff from me and Richard Palmer90—so there’s really no reason to doubt him. All his posts stay perfectly on topic...
Based on what he’s posted on those subforums so far—I actually went back and combed through all his posts again tonight just to be safe—there isn't any sign of a political stance... so I don't really have any reason to think he's biased.
Xavier popped up in the Tourism subforum for the first time yesterday—which is wild, considering she hasn't posted a single thing in the Tourism section or any of those Canadian-related threads over her nine years of moderating... She only dropped a couple of posts that were completely off-topic, too. I really wish she'd stick to the actual topics for once...
There’s a massive difference there.

So, look—nobody was actually harmed here. No one got a strike or anything; we just cleared out the offtopic posts. We kept all of Elizabeth's posts and links intact, and the user actually got their answer about the Museum... If anyone still wants to argue about it, feel free to head over to the Tourism offtopic thread.

I've cleared out some posts because they were getting off-track—and since I'm dealing with some technical glitches right now, I haven't moved them over to the "Offtopic Destination and other topics" thread like I mentioned last night...
I decided to leave Elizabeth's post regarding her critique of the Museum (she was actually sharing an opinion from a Canadian artist) along with her reply to Magor's post—since he cited two sources that don't really fit this specific discussion—so I figured I'd just let both sides of the museum debate stay visible for a bit.
The whole question about the Museum was strictly about Tourism...
Standard procedure here is that if a discussion starts veering into off-topic territory, we either move it over to the offtopic thread so people can keep chatting there, or we just wipe it clean...