We Don’t Want Those Tourists Here
One thing I’ve heard over and over in small towns, including our own, is some version of the same sentence:
“We don’t want this place turning into one of those tourist towns.”
Sometimes it’s said jokingly.
Sometimes it’s said seriously.
Sometimes it’s said with pride.
The idea behind it is understandable. People don’t want traffic, crowds, or the feeling that their town is losing what makes it special. They remember when things felt quieter, simpler, and more local, and they don’t want to see that disappear.
The problem is that the world around small towns has changed, whether we like it or not.
And when a town says it wants a strong economy, low taxes, and a healthy Main Street — but also says it doesn’t want tourism, growth, or outside visitors — those goals start to conflict with each other.
You can’t have all of them at the same time.
When small towns could survive on their own
Years ago, a town didn’t need tourism the way it does now.
People worked locally.
They shopped locally.
They ate locally.
Most of the money stayed in the community.
Downtown businesses could survive mostly on local customers because that’s where people spent their money.
That isn’t how the economy works anymore.
Today, people shop online.
They drive to bigger cities.
They order from Amazon.
They travel more.
They have more choices than ever.
Even people who want to support local businesses don’t do all of their shopping locally, and that’s not because they don’t care. It’s because the world changed.
When that happens, a town either brings in outside dollars — or it slowly shrinks.
Tourism isn’t about souvenirs and gift shops
When people hear the word tourism, they sometimes picture cheap souvenir stores, crowded streets, and a town that feels like it’s lost its identity.
That’s not what tourism actually means.
Tourism means outside money.
It means visitors who eat in local restaurants, stay in local hotels, buy gas, shop in local stores, and pay sales taxes that help fund local services.
That outside money helps support jobs.
It helps support businesses.
It helps keep the tax burden from falling entirely on the people who already live here.
Without it, the numbers get harder every year.
The contradiction small towns don’t like to talk about
A lot of towns say they want:
lower taxes
more businesses
a full Main Street
good schools
strong local jobs
But at the same time, you hear:
we don’t want more traffic
we don’t want outsiders
we don’t want change
we don’t want this place to grow too much
The reality is those two ideas don’t go together.
If a town doesn’t grow its economy, the cost of running the town doesn’t go away.
It just gets spread across fewer people.
That usually means higher taxes, fewer services, or businesses slowly disappearing.
Not because anyone wanted that to happen.
Because that’s how the math works.
Change is coming whether we want it or not
Small towns everywhere are facing the same pressure right now.
Higher costs.
Online shopping.
More competition.
Changing travel habits.
Fewer locally owned businesses.
Ignoring those changes doesn’t stop them.
It just means the change happens anyway, and the town reacts after the damage is already done.
We can’t keep things exactly the way they were 20 or 30 years ago.
No town can.
The choice isn’t whether change happens.
The choice is whether we guide it, or let it roll over us.
Tourism isn’t the enemy
Tourism doesn’t have to mean losing what makes a town special.
In many cases, it’s what allows a town to keep what makes it special.
When visitors come in, they help support the restaurants, shops, and businesses that locals alone can’t keep open anymore. They help keep downtown alive. They help bring in money that doesn’t come out of the pockets of the people who already live here.
Without that balance, the pressure keeps building until businesses close, storefronts go empty, and people start asking what happened.
By then, it’s usually too late to fix it quickly.
If we want a future, we have to be honest
It’s easy to say we don’t want this to become a tourist town.
It’s harder to accept that without outside dollars, many small towns don’t stay the way they are — they slowly fade.
Wanting to keep a town the same is understandable.
But pretending the world hasn’t changed won’t keep it that way.
If we want our town to have a future, we have to be willing to talk honestly about what it takes to get there.
Even when the answer isn’t comfortable.
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