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I don't think that as Austinites, we have any say or even much knowledge of whether we are a tourist destination or not. It's really not up to us, it's up to the rest of the world.
Let's put it this way: If you were living in Boston (or any really any major city outside Texas), and someone said they are going to Dallas or Houston on vacation... people would probably look at them like they were crazy. A business conference? Visiting family? Sure. But a vacation, no.
However, if they said they are going to Austin for vacation, folks would be like "Ok yeah, live music and great bbq, enjoy yourself".
It doesn't mean Dallas or Houston aren't world class cities, they are... and Austin is not. But I suspect Austin is a actually the more legitimate tourist destination.
I think people are underestimating the power of the Austin PR machine. I hate to break it to you, but a huge number of "best of" lists are created by applying to be on it. Think your restaurant in Austin is good? Here, fill out this application. Maybe pay an "application fee". Depending on the distribution of applicants, your restaurant might make the cut. It depends on the year and the other applicants. The same holds true for "coolest city", "best city for _________", etc.
As someone who has traveled a great deal, when I see things like "hang out at Lake Travis", I know that means practically nothing. What am I going to do at Lake Travis? Eat dinner on a dock? Go out on a boat? Hardly unique experiences. Now bring on the haters.....
I think people are underestimating the power of the Austin PR machine. I hate to break it to you, but a huge number of "best of" lists are created by applying to be on it. Think your restaurant in Austin is good? Here, fill out this application. Maybe pay an "application fee". Depending on the distribution of applicants, your restaurant might make the cut. It depends on the year and the other applicants. The same holds true for "coolest city", "best city for _________", etc.
As someone who has traveled a great deal, when I see things like "hang out at Lake Travis", I know that means practically nothing. What am I going to do at Lake Travis? Eat dinner on a dock? Go out on a boat? Hardly unique experiences. Now bring on the haters.....
Well, you can do a lot more rock climbing out there nowadays.
I've had a few people here in Oz ask me about Austin if they've heard of it (which is more than I'd expect). I always tell them it's a great place for a long weekend. You party, you eat, you spend time in the water. The big city people are impressed by the relaxed pace and unpretentiousness of the place. The small town people are impressed with the vibrancy. It's uniquely Texas cool. After spending a few months away from Austin, there really are a ton of intangibles about the city that are very appealing and slip past the oft jaded local posters of City-Data.
I think people are underestimating the power of the Austin PR machine. I hate to break it to you, but a huge number of "best of" lists are created by applying to be on it. Think your restaurant in Austin is good? Here, fill out this application. Maybe pay an "application fee". Depending on the distribution of applicants, your restaurant might make the cut. It depends on the year and the other applicants. The same holds true for "coolest city", "best city for _________", etc.
As someone who has traveled a great deal, when I see things like "hang out at Lake Travis", I know that means practically nothing. What am I going to do at Lake Travis? Eat dinner on a dock? Go out on a boat? Hardly unique experiences. Now bring on the haters.....
PR and good advertising will only get your foot in the door. If people come to Austin and are let down they will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, etc. Cities like Houston are hiring celebrities to do TV advertisements for them, something Austin hasn't resorted to AFAIK.
I think people are underestimating the power of the Austin PR machine. I hate to break it to you, but a huge number of "best of" lists are created by applying to be on it. Think your restaurant in Austin is good? Here, fill out this application. Maybe pay an "application fee". Depending on the distribution of applicants, your restaurant might make the cut. It depends on the year and the other applicants. The same holds true for "coolest city", "best city for _________", etc.
I didn't mention anything about lists. Just what I've observed from people outside of Austin when I travel. And even though I didn't feel the need to say "As someone who has traveled a great deal," doesn't mean that isn't the case .
But I am curious how much you think New York City paid for their GQ city guide.
I'm a diplobrat. I have friends from various points in my life from all over the world. The last five years I have had people crawling out from the woodwork saying they want to come to Austin. While I am a fun guy, these people whom I have not heard from for twenty plus years are not really coming to see me. I think the Austin PR machine is a paranoid and factually inaccurate explanation.
I agree that Austin is overhyped, but I am starting to understand the reasons. It is largely event driven. There are bigger events in Texas, most significantly the Texas State Fair in Dallas and the Houston Rodeo and to a lesser extent Fiesta in San Antonio. I like all of them but for coastal and international cultural opinion makers - New York Times journalists, Conde Nast travel writers and the like, these are parochial, unintellectual, uncool and deeply boring. South by Southwest, ACL and Formula 1 are not. These kind of travelers would never dream of going to Dallas or Houston, and while Dallas and Houston ARE in many ways more interesting and sophisticated cities than Austin, their version of sophistication is similar and lesser to twenty or so other places.
Paradoxically, Houston, which is a city I love is a lot less Texan than Austin. Ditto for Dallas which is a city I love less. Eg. a group of friends from Chicago, London and Sydney rented the Reuter house in Travis Heights for a long weekend. The Reuter house is a gorgeous 1930s mansion with a terrace overlooking the skyline on two acres with a staircase that Rita Heyworth could walk down any second. For them it cost a song, if that. We sat in line at Franklin for three hours, for one of them it was her first time sitting in a fold up cloth chair drinking beer out of a bottle. They all felt politically comfortable because every local we met trashed Ted Cruz and Rick Perry with much more wit and knowledge than they could. The brisket blew their minds and those are people who eat at Michelin starred restaurants all over the world.
I had another friend visiting from Milan, who could not believe the $7 prohibition era cocktail at the Tigress. (Europeans generally don't know a cocktail beyond a martini or negroni- and they have a terror about mixing liquors). His jaw was on the floor when we went into my storage, put the kayak on my head and walked three blocks to Lady Bird lake, and in under 10 minutes were surrounded by towering Cypress trees, turtles and natural serenity in the heart of the city. I regretted the experience. He is much fitter than me and we kayaked all the way to Red Bud Isle, the most beautiful urban park in the world according to him, and back!
For three days, Austin offers an utterly unique kind of lifestyle tourism. Food and drink are very very good and very very cheap for people used to Zurich or Sydney prices, and nothing like they have seen before. I remember a rather obnoxious Frenchman saying to me: "Dallas is Omaha on steroids, Houston Bogata without scenery or architecture but aahh Austin …. I don't necessarily agree with him, but given his limited experience here, I can see why he thought the way he does.
I think Austin is definitely now on a global tourist map and the fancier the tourist, the more they will love it! Here is the itinerary, i have refined over the years. Food: BBQ, Rudys is fine they don't know any better, Fonda San Miguel - the only fancy restaurant besides Barley Swine, that works, breakfast tacos - the only Tex-Mex that does not produce nose wrinkling, lots of margaritas. Lone stars at the Dry Dock on Mt. Bonnell, agua frescos at Veracruz All Natural, East Side Kings at the back of the Liberty Bar - being surrounded by gorgeous tattooed and friendly hipster children does not hurt. Continental Club, Club de Ville, Broken Spoke, the bar at the Driskill and then onto a dude ranch in Bandera for a weekend, and a few days in Marfa and big Bend, and then on the plane for Mexico City and invariably they leave LOVING Texas.
I have tried sending them to San Antonio, but they hate it. Its too touristy: too many fat Americans in cheap shorts on the river walk. They are my friends, but I don't always share their snobberies, and I am fairly certain if I lived anywhere else in Texas, they would not be clambering to visit, and it has much more to do with kind of experiences available here than with any P.R. machine.
PR and good advertising will only get your foot in the door. If people come to Austin and are let down they will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, etc. Cities like Houston are hiring celebrities to do TV advertisements for them, something Austin hasn't resorted to AFAIK.
I think one would be considered deeply uncool if they admitted that Austin didn't live up to its hype. Austin is a little like Costa Rica in that regard. After my first visit there, I could not for the life of me understand the excessive Costa Rica love. Then I figured I must be wrong, but my 2nd and 3rd visits confirmed it. The ratio of hype to reality is too high. Same with Austin. Both are OK places with great PR. But there must be something wrong with you if you admit it.
I'm a diplobrat. I have friends from various points in my life from all over the world. The last five years I have had people crawling out from the woodwork saying they want to come to Austin. While I am a fun guy, these people whom I have not heard from for twenty plus years are not really coming to see me. I think the Austin PR machine is a paranoid and factually inaccurate explanation.
I agree that Austin is overhyped, but I am starting to understand the reasons. It is largely event driven. There are bigger events in Texas, most significantly the Texas State Fair in Dallas and the Houston Rodeo and to a lesser extent Fiesta in San Antonio. I like all of them but for coastal and international cultural opinion makers - New York Times journalists, Conde Nast travel writers and the like, these are parochial, unintellectual, uncool and deeply boring. South by Southwest, ACL and Formula 1 are not. These kind of travelers would never dream of going to Dallas or Houston, and while Dallas and Houston ARE in many ways more interesting and sophisticated cities than Austin, their version of sophistication is similar and lesser to twenty or so other places.
Paradoxically, Houston, which is a city I love is a lot less Texan than Austin. Ditto for Dallas which is a city I love less. Eg. a group of friends from Chicago, London and Sydney rented the Reuter house in Travis Heights for a long weekend. The Reuter house is a gorgeous 1930s mansion with a terrace overlooking the skyline on two acres with a staircase that Rita Heyworth could walk down any second. For them it cost a song, if that. We sat in line at Franklin for three hours, for one of them it was her first time sitting in a fold up cloth chair drinking beer out of a bottle. They all felt politically comfortable because every local we met trashed Ted Cruz and Rick Perry with much more wit and knowledge than they could. The brisket blew their minds and those are people who eat at Michelin starred restaurants all over the world.
I had another friend visiting from Milan, who could not believe the $7 prohibition era cocktail at the Tigress. (Europeans generally don't know a cocktail beyond a martini or negroni- and they have a terror about mixing liquors). His jaw was on the floor when we went into my storage, put the kayak on my head and walked three blocks to Lady Bird lake, and in under 10 minutes were surrounded by towering Cypress trees, turtles and natural serenity in the heart of the city. I regretted the experience. He is much fitter than me and we kayaked all the way to Red Bud Isle, the most beautiful urban park in the world according to him, and back!
For three days, Austin offers an utterly unique kind of lifestyle tourism. Food and drink are very very good and very very cheap for people used to Zurich or Sydney prices, and nothing like they have seen before. I remember a rather obnoxious Frenchman saying to me: "Dallas is Omaha on steroids, Houston Bogata without scenery or architecture but aahh Austin …. I don't necessarily agree with him, but given his limited experience here, I can see why he thought the way he does.
I think Austin is definitely now on a global tourist map and the fancier the tourist, the more they will love it! Here is the itinerary, i have refined over the years. Food: BBQ, Rudys is fine they don't know any better, Fonda San Miguel - the only fancy restaurant besides Barley Swine, that works, breakfast tacos - the only Tex-Mex that does not produce nose wrinkling, lots of margaritas. Lone stars at the Dry Dock on Mt. Bonnell, agua frescos at Veracruz All Natural, East Side Kings at the back of the Liberty Bar - being surrounded by gorgeous tattooed and friendly hipster children does not hurt. Continental Club, Club de Ville, Broken Spoke, the bar at the Driskill and then onto a dude ranch in Bandera for a weekend, and a few days in Marfa and big Bend, and then on the plane for Mexico City and invariably they leave LOVING Texas.
I have tried sending them to San Antonio, but they hate it. Its too touristy: too many fat Americans in cheap shorts on the river walk. They are my friends, but I don't always share their snobberies, and I am fairly certain if I lived anywhere else in Texas, they would not be clambering to visit, and it has much more to do with kind of experiences available here than with any P.R. machine.
Yup you explain it pretty well though but I got to disagree about F1, it is the epitome of unintellectual, cool, and deeply boring. The 2 events Austin has going for itself at the moment are ACL and SXSW. That's about it.
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