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A well designed convention center has it's ups and downs, but with the costs of the unions in Chicago and New York, Houston should have a good shot to host things, especially in a time when companies are really looking at the bottom line. New York has Central Park, Chicago has Grant Park, Atlanta has Olympic Park, these are all near the conventions, especially Atlanta, where people can get away and meet others in the sunshine.
A well designed convention center has it's ups and downs, but with the costs of the unions in Chicago and New York, Houston should have a good shot to host things, especially in a time when companies are really looking at the bottom line. New York has Central Park, Chicago has Grant Park, Atlanta has Olympic Park, these are all near the conventions, especially Atlanta, where people can get away and meet others in the sunshine.
Maybe this is where Discovery Green comes in.
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I really don't see what there would be to draw people. NASA is really the only thing and it's not "in" the city. We don't have a Michigan Ave like Chicago, don't have good weather, our water is gross, no beaches, there's no pretty scenery....it's a town for working and making money, not tourism. It'd be a waste of money to try to develop it. People don't want to come see some muddy brown glorified ditches (i.e. "bayous"). Ask yourself this: if you lived on the West coast, the east coast, or a southwest/mountain state, would you ever choose to vacation in.....Houston? No, you would not. Certain towns (Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Sacramento, Riverside, etc. etc. etc. etc.) will just never become tourist draws without some HUGE sea change - like a movie industry popping up or something. Think about all the places tourists go: SF, LA, San Diego, Colorado, Miami, New York, and think about WHY they go there. There's always a pretty big draw. People don't want to spend 1000s of dollars to visit a place unless there's a really big difference in what it has to offer and what they're already coming from.
You're right to an extent. But how did Chicago get Michigan Avenue? It came to be for Chicagoans, not for outsiders. Why do people go to NYC? It's not any sort of natural scenery, that's for sure.
More fun is great, and it should be geared toward locals and the people who do travel here even if they didn't come here just to be in Houston. Trying to out-Vegas Vegas will be a waste of money and effort. Besides, I find the usual tourist traps to be rather contrived as they are what outsiders want to be to the exclusion of any local identity. Vegas natives don't gamble. New Orleans natives tend not to go to Bourbon Street. New Yorkers generally avoid Times Square like a third world disease. All those people wearing "I <3 NY" shirts? Tourists. Furthermore, tourism is not a very good "fallback" industry in a down economy, because if people don't have money, they don't travel for leisure. Anywhere.
I'll say it again - develop the transportation infrastructure, and that means other than freeways. If I came here from somewhere else, not really knowing my way around here, and got told to take a bunch of clogged, ugly interstate highways to get to everything, I'd never want to come back. Even if I didn't come here just for the sake of coming here.
Certain towns (Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Sacramento, Riverside, etc. etc. etc. etc.) will just never become tourist draws without some HUGE sea change - like a movie industry popping up or something.
St. Louis is a tourist draw - I went there on vacation once to see the arch and all that. Pittsburgh has also become quite the tourist draw of late. So there is hope.
I think I could go to any large city in the country and find something to do - then again I can have fun in a place I haven't seen in a movie or a postcard or something like that.
I've been up in the Arch - interesting riding up there in a little module that I could probably fit twice into my 1br apartment's living room. Great views up there.
It may not be as elegant looking on the outside, but one can catch some great views up high here in Houston at the Chase Tower...
Of course, this is not something exactly advertised as a tourist spot as it is normally a place for people to work. Typical Houston one might say, but do you really want a bunch of tourists milling about in your office lobby?
What do you think the city could do to bring more tourism to Houston?
It seems that most people who come to Houston from out of town are here on business, and almost never for pleasure.
I, personally, thought it'd be awesome if they did something to the bayous and actually started using them for transit, with small boats running up and down as ferries. They would have to do a lot of cleaning and fix a lot of things up to do that, but it'd be great, especially since bayous run pretty much everywhere, including downtown.
Personally, I've long given up on wanting our H-town to be a typical tourist place.
After living in Tampa Bay and San Diego for a good number of years, I don't know. There's just so much more going on here than just a tourist industry.
I'd rather have Buffalo Bayou be more of retreat for adventurous canoers than have it be commercialized waterway ala the Woodlands or Riverwalk or so. I think the bayous are level-wise too unstable for commercial venues like that anyway.
In the back of my mind, I do want to take a canoe down from Hershey Park to downtown one day, if that's doable on a winter day. Just not this year.
I really don't see what there would be to draw people. NASA is really the only thing and it's not "in" the city. We don't have a Michigan Ave like Chicago, don't have good weather, our water is gross, no beaches, there's no pretty scenery....it's a town for working and making money, not tourism. It'd be a waste of money to try to develop it. People don't want to come see some muddy brown glorified ditches (i.e. "bayous"). Ask yourself this: if you lived on the West coast, the east coast, or a southwest/mountain state, would you ever choose to vacation in.....Houston? No, you would not. Certain towns (Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Sacramento, Riverside, etc. etc. etc. etc.) will just never become tourist draws without some HUGE sea change - like a movie industry popping up or something. Think about all the places tourists go: SF, LA, San Diego, Colorado, Miami, New York, and think about WHY they go there. There's always a pretty big draw. People don't want to spend 1000s of dollars to visit a place unless there's a really big difference in what it has to offer and what they're already coming from.
Not trying to bash Houston either...I'm just trying to be objective. And almost everyone at work (most people have lived in other major cities) thinks Houston is pretty lame. Not that you should be miserable here, by any stretch of the imagination. It's fine if your goal is to work and make some money and then get out. I don't think the "it's the media conspiracy!" is a valid point. And it's not that we're just "boring people" who don't explore the city - we've been to all the museum, art car parade, Memorial Park, etc. etc. etc. There's simply nothing that "wow" here.
Grunn actually has a good point - if the city/state liberalized drug, gambling, and casino draws, that's about the only "easy" way I see of becoming a tourist destination.
Houston doesn't have that ONE focal point really. But as I was driving around yesterday...Houston Metro with all of its many elements taken together: Kemah, Old Town Spring, downtown, Montrose, Sugar Land, downtown Richmond/Rosenberg, City Centre, Galleria-area, Med Center, Woodlands Waterway, Buffalo Bayou sidewalks, Museum District, New Chinatown, colorful yet lively strip centers along Westheimer full of fun places to eat and drink...Houston is one BIG MOVIE set in real life terms.
Yeah, you can't really do a London/NYC "on and off" bus tour here with all of that spread out...but it makes for a very engaging metro to live in!
Houston is a more interesting place with greater contrast in itself than NYC. NYC offers the most exemplified pure urban US environment in that perspective...but compared to Manila it is DULL in a street visceral way and even in an architectual sense (Manila has spectacular modern high rises and malls...if only with the concomitant poverty that Tokyo and Singapore lack). Compared to London it is a cesspool. Compared to Amsterdam...it is a dump.
So take that for its relative worth. If tourists go to NYC thinking it's the end-all of places, so be it. I like having the poetry of a Houston bayou walk near the Med Center, to take a solo stroll...then walk up to adjacent Braeswood to Fannin...back to the busy sidewalks of the urban Med Center.
Can you do that in NYC? Do you have that oddball contrast up there? Of course, tourist industry minds don't think of that. It's for us residents to enjoy here.
LA is fun but look at that texture. To me, the sidewalks and basic building structure of Melrose, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Colorado Ave, Wilshire, Western, Westwood, Robertson, Santa Ana and such...are MONOTONOUS. Different labels, but really the same look. OK. Hollywood is wide and bubbly, Wilshire has some futurism...but really...
Living in SoCal, I once took my first excursion to Old Town Pasadena in 2002, wanting to catch a flick and be "LA cool." I walked around a block...then got in my car and took off, disgusted in a way. What's the big deal? All these wanna-bes and tourists and such. This is just Santa Monica away from the Pacific! I started to miss Houston's jumble of incongruity. I was done being a SoCal wanna-be that day.
Here in Houston, we have skinny catwalks all around, we have big sidewalks downtown and Midtown...lined with either regular commercial buildings OR character-rich bungalows and Victorians that serve as cafes, clubs and boutiques. That element is missing in SoCal towns for the most part.
Look at White Oak, lower Westheimer, W. Gray and stretches of W. Alabama and Richmond Ave to see what I mean. I LOVE THAT eclectic mix of structures for commercial use. Hobbit Cafe, Avant Garden, Blue Fish, Agora Ka, Byzantio's Cafe...You won't really see those in San Diego or LA. Then contrast our cool Victorians and odd bungalows with the flash and dash of the Galleria or Sugar Land Square. The clapboards of those Kemah Lighthouse bars with the, ahem, LA-style of Coco's, Fish and other Midtown haunts. So much appealing contrast here in H-town we don't get enough love for, except for a few observant ones not blinded by Hollywood brainwash.
But nah, the word "Houston" is supposed to conjure the adjective "dull", no matter what. There's nothing really good here we are reminded. Bayous as "glorified ditches."
Sure...anyone can go up top to the Empire State Building or pop some change to see the Golden Gate Bridge (I have). But how many people can say they've worked at the Texas Medical Center where actress Jaclyn Smith's husband is a thoracic surgeon and VIPs/celebrities get treatment...how many people can say they've used an impressive and elaborate downtown tunnel system? Certainly not tourists from Alabama or Iowa or Berlin who go to a certain other city for photoops with the Hollywood sign.
I've lived in San Diego and Tampa Bay...top tourist metros by any standard. Yet, they are nowhere near the complex and engaging place to live that Houston is.
Last edited by worldlyman; 02-11-2010 at 10:35 AM..
gatdengit. now we got poets.
NYC got the riverS and the OCEAN and you get the subway/pedestrian bridges to take you there if you want a quickie nature trip. ya locals do it everyday
bayous jeebus. thats the one you should give up first
gatdengit. now we got poets.
NYC got the riverS and the OCEAN and you get the subway/pedestrian bridges to take you there if you want a quickie nature trip. ya locals do it everyday
bayous jeebus. thats the one you should give up first
I've driven around those "pedestrian" bridges getting lost in and out of Manhattan. I've seen the side of NYC that the boosters and brochures and tourists never really digest. I've digested it.
Unlike typical tourists to NYC, I actually took my car during an East Coast jaunt.
That's "nature?"
No, thanks. I'll take Hershey Park in a Texan hearbeat over that Hudson Toilet Rim-based "nature."
Don't get me wrong. I like NY, I like cities in general. I actually liked NYC people better than those in San Fran and Chicago...but something about that environment...just isn't...
But Houston's just got that nice ratio of space to people for me, people in the appropriate areas...and a contrasting environment to match.
I wasn't trying to knock houston...just trying to point out that, objectively, people do not want to come here for pleasure...ever. It's hard to sell "eclectic, sprawling mix of strip malls, some museums, and a standard hi-end shopping mall" as a sell factor for *tourism.* Yah, we might be the only major city that is so ecclectic and spread out with the mix of strip malls, hi-rises, medical center, etc...but that's not appealing to people. If I'm in Denver, why am I going to fly to Houston to see the ecclectic mix of strip malls and antique stores on Westheimer? I have strip malls and antique stores in Denver already. There is very, very little here that cannot be had in 95% of metros with a population over 2 million. People go to vegas *for tourism* because most places do not have gambling and all that entertainment...people go to miami *for tourism* because very few places have that nightlife or those quality of beachs....people go to colorado *for tourism* because very few places have the quality of skiing and beautiful scenery. To be a good choice for a tourist destination you have to have unique features that are desirable. Yes, Westheimer, Washington ave, and parts of midtown are pretty cool. I wouldn't pay to visit them though if I was from somewhere else.
It's pretty telling that even REGIONALLY we are not a tourist draw. People form Louisiana or Oklahoma do not plan pleasure trips to Houston (maybe Galveston if they're on a budget but even there Corpus or SPI is more likely). More than likley they'll go to San Antonio, Hill Country, Austin, NOLA, or even Dallas. Regionally, people have much more exposure to Houston than people in, say, New England, and they still don't want to come here for pleasure. The Rodeo and pro sports are our only real regional draws, and even then most of the people who attend those are from the metro area. IF we were serious about creating a tourist draw we'd legalize gambling or give huge incentives to entertainment/film companies to set up shop here.
I'm not saying it's an awful town or a bad place to live. As far as cities go it's pretty middle-of-the-road in my opinion. I can think of many that are better, and many that are much worse. I'm also not saying it's unusually boring, although it certianly isn't a "happening" place. Most of the time I work so much it wouldn't matter what city I was in.
I do agree with Steve though...the Bayou thing is ridiculous. They are not a selling point that would draw people to visit. Regionally, Austin and the Hill Country have a much nicer series of rivers, streams, springs, and lakes. Nationally, you wouldn't fly to the bayous when you could just go to a much better river system.
Last edited by goldenyears1984; 02-11-2010 at 12:10 PM..
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