Houston as Tourist Destination (Dallas, Universal City: credit, luxury, restaurant)

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by ScrappyJoe

As referenced earlier in this thread, tourism in any given city really is just a direct relationship with the density and pedestrian-friendliness. That is, cities that are more dense and pedestrian-friendly happen are also more appealing to tourists, whether in defined, specific districts (i.e. Austin, Las Vegas, Orlando), or across the jurisdictions at large (i.e. NYC, and other large, dense cities with good transit).

How do you explain Los Angeles? It's going through a tourism boom right now.

You will be spending lots of money on Uber/Lyft (and limit your mobility) if you didn't rent a car at LAX. But there are plenty of tourists and visitors who depend on ride shares when visiting L.A., despite the sprawl between the attractions.

Originally Posted by Dopo

San Antonio has the Riverwalk, missions and a festival every weekend
Houston has nothing like that

The only festivals in S.A. are Fiesta (lots of drunk driving PSAs on the radio at that time) and the Ford parade on Thanksgiving. The rest of the year it's just tourists eating dinner/drinking on the Riverwalk establishments.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by Dopo

San Antonio has the Riverwalk, missions and a festival every weekend
Houston has nothing like that

Houston is more of a festival city than San Antonio. Houston's isn't more of a destination than San Antonio, but festivals aren't the reason why.

[kemahkami]

Originally Posted by mkwensky

I don't think density and pedestrian friendliness alone can build tourism. At the end of day places become tourist destinations because they have unique attractions. Aside from Johnson Space Center, which really needs to be updated with newer relics, Houston doesn't really have anything with international or even national appeal. There isn't anything wrong with that. Having to fight for amenities with tourists suck, and most Houston family attractions are already packed to the gills on weekends.

Density and walkability are fundamental in crafting a city's tourist appeal, albeit indirectly. That is, those two circumstances form the fundamental environment wherein the fruits of creativity, high education, and/or ideation exchanges can incubate and accelerate more easily. That then gives way to those "unique" attractions you may have in mind, either as original creations, or repursposement of perspective for existing features.

With Houston's spread out, auto-centric build pattern, not only are there less people per given area, but those people also spend longer times shut out and cut off from the environment. So there's going to be less interaction going on with the city's people, both with each other, as well as with the environment at large - that leads to less innate civic concern, in turn causing lower perceived appeal in any of the city's existing amenities, as well as diminished incentive for new creativity. We can see the impact such dynamics have in fostering tourist appeal, just by seeing the difference in perception with San Antonio's Alamo compared to Houston's San Jacinto Monument, despite both representing the same historical event.

Notice that all the so-called "boring" cities are all low-density, auto-focused cities of the Sunbelt - Houston, Dallas, Charlotte, Phoenix, OKC, etc. Whereas all the "fun" cities like New Orleans, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, etc happen to have high density and walkability, at least in their "hot spots" if not all over their environments.

[kemahkami]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

How do you explain Los Angeles? It's going through a tourism boom right now.

You will be spending lots of money on Uber/Lyft (and limit your mobility) if you didn't rent a car at LAX. But there are plenty of tourists and visitors who depend on ride shares when visiting L.A., despite the sprawl between the attractions.

Los Angeles, while quite sprawled out, still has multiple centers of high density and walkability, much more so than Houston. In addition, the city continually builds new infill to further expand such fabric.

Of course, Los Angeles also has significant natural beauty. And that city has maximized people's interaction with such features by ensuring vibrancy with Venice Beach, and other seaside communities of the area.

That being said, if you pay close attention to sentiments, you'll notice that visitors to LA do, in fact, feel a bit underwhelmed with that city when they compare to other world megacities like NYC or Paris. They also don't feel any of the Mediterranean charm with LA in the vein that they do with, say, Barcelona. And guess what? The sprawl there is a large factor in that.

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

Right, that's why San Antonio and Austin (whose rail doesn't count) have no tourists.

Originally Posted by Dopo

San Antonio has the Riverwalk, missions and a festival every weekend
Houston has nothing like that

Austin and San Antonio get away with lack of public transit because their tourism, as well as livelihood at large, are small-town and concentrated singularly in their downtowns. That differs from Houston, where the tourism format, if developed, would more take the matured, "world-city" role.

[Justabystander]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

How do you explain Los Angeles? It's going through a tourism boom right now.

You will be spending lots of money on Uber/Lyft (and limit your mobility) if you didn't rent a car at LAX. But there are plenty of tourists and visitors who depend on ride shares when visiting L.A., despite the sprawl between the attractions.



The only festivals in S.A. are Fiesta (lots of drunk driving PSAs on the radio at that time) and the Ford parade on Thanksgiving. The rest of the year it's just tourists eating dinner/drinking on the Riverwalk establishments.

Are you really comparing Houston with Los Angeles as a tourist destination? LA has the Hollywood lore, hills, the ocean, Malibu, Venice Beach,Beverly Hills, Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, the Huntington Museum and weather. Houston has...…………?

SF, NYC, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas are known tourist destinations because they have a lot of things to do there. People go to Houston ( like myself ) for business, or if they have family there. I recall going to a museum with a cool butterfly collection, but that is it. NOT a tourist town.

[theurbanfiles]

^I don’t think his point was intended to compare LA and Houston. More that the comment about a place being a major destination needing to have transit and be heavily walkable in reputation. Within the US, Orlando, Las Vegas, and Atlanta that isn’t true for, and globally, that isn’t true necessarily for Dubai, Bangkok or Antalya either.

That said, it certainly does help-but there are extremely walkable cities and transit friendly cities on a global scale that still are considered afterthoughts for tourists. The critical factor is having “it”. “It” destinations that are considered the absolute best in, or highly unique to said city, and so people flock there. You are correct that those places have more “It” things and as such cater much more tourists... but for instance, there are a few cities, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Ill even say it, Austin (with the caveat that I love Austin’s superb park and rec network and active culture) that are much more known for tourism, but yet I find Houston as a city to look around in equally or more fascinating.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by cavsfan137

^I don’t think his point was intended to compare LA and Houston. More that the comment about a place being a major destination needing to have transit and be heavily walkable in reputation.

Lots of British tourists complain about the 35-mile ground connection from LAX to Disneyland. LAX is the only long-haul airport in SoCal out of the 4/5 in the region, so O.C., Burbank, Long Beach are inaccessible. The only affordable ground transportation would be shuttles, resort-provided or privately booked.

Originally Posted by ScrappyJoe

Los Angeles, while quite sprawled out, still has multiple centers of high density and walkability, much more so than Houston.

What have you been smoking? Nobody glamorous and classy would get caught walking in L.A. Thus the existence of valet parking!

And tell me what and where these multiple centers of density and walkability are located in Metro L.A./O.C.?

In addition, the city continually builds new infill to further expand such fabric.

Were you referring to the "revitalization" of DTLA? The only things built in the 2010s were the Ritz-Carlton Tower at L.A. LIVE, Wilshire Grand, and the Metropolis towers. Not an impressive list of projects. Skid Row sadly still exists.

Houston is now 2 places behind Tallest Building West of the Mississippi with the completion of the Wilshire Grand (one of the rare supertalls to be built in the U.S. this century, another story for later). But Hess, BG Place, Capitol Tower, 609 Main were built in the past decade and Texas Tower is about to open later this year or early next year.

The Avenida has enhanced 12-year old Discovery Green (Houston's answer to L.A. LIVE or Dallas' Victory Park). And the homeless problem is nowhere as bad as L.A.--no Skid Row, but the most well-developed social services in Texas and the South.

Originally Posted by Justabystander

Are you really comparing Houston with Los Angeles as a tourist destination? LA has the Hollywood lore, hills, the ocean, Malibu, Venice Beach,Beverly Hills, Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, the Huntington Museum and weather. Houston has...…………?

Most people lament that like Houston, Los Angeles is a hard-to-read city. You would need to do serious research before visiting unlike N.Y.C., D.C., or Vegas with the sprawl and disorganization.

We do have something similar to the Huntington in Galveston called Moody Gardens.

SF, NYC, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas are known tourist destinations because they have a lot of things to do there. People go to Houston ( like myself ) for business, or if they have family there. I recall going to a museum with a cool butterfly collection, but that is it. NOT a tourist town.

Seriously you start out with S.F.? The shops on Union Square and Market Street are open late mornings and close early evenings. And tell me what to do in Miami besides the beach? If you say the Vizcaya, we have Bayou Bend and Rienzi.

The Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Museum of Natural Science is nice, but the MFAH a block away is one of the top art museums in the country.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by ScrappyJoe

Density and walkability are fundamental in crafting a city's tourist appeal, albeit indirectly. That is, those two circumstances form the fundamental environment wherein the fruits of creativity, high education, and/or ideation exchanges can incubate and accelerate more easily. That then gives way to those "unique" attractions you may have in mind, either as original creations, or repursposement of perspective for existing features.

With Houston's spread out, auto-centric build pattern, not only are there less people per given area, but those people also spend longer times shut out and cut off from the environment. So there's going to be less interaction going on with the city's people, both with each other, as well as with the environment at large - that leads to less innate civic concern, in turn causing lower perceived appeal in any of the city's existing amenities, as well as diminished incentive for new creativity. We can see the impact such dynamics have in fostering tourist appeal, just by seeing the difference in perception with San Antonio's Alamo compared to Houston's San Jacinto Monument, despite both representing the same historical event.

Notice that all the so-called "boring" cities are all low-density, auto-focused cities of the Sunbelt - Houston, Dallas, Charlotte, Phoenix, OKC, etc. Whereas all the "fun" cities like New Orleans, NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, etc happen to have high density and walkability, at least in their "hot spots" if not all over their environments.

Less innate civic concern? Hard to find a city with more than Houston.
Overstating your case to make yourself look like you don't have a clue.

[Pine to Vine]

Originally Posted by bu2

Less innate civic concern? Hard to find a city with more than Houston.
Overstating your case to make yourself look like you don't have a clue.

Understating your case shows you actually don’t have a substantive reply to the post in question.

[Spade]

As I said before, Los Angeles does sprawl but the density is also heavily underrated. It is one of those special cases due to size, location, and amenities. Los Angeles gets that pass. You can not compare Houston to that. People really underrate and under value dense attractions and mass transit. It matters very much.