America's small cities being overrun by tourists

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Overrun by Tourists, American Cities Are Taking Aim at Hotels

Places such as Charleston, S.C., Asheville, NC, and Portland, Maine, are starting to feel pressure after a decade-long boom in tourism.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...un-by-tourists


A new hotel going up in Charleston’s French Quarter. PHOTOGRAPHER: EVA VERBEECK/BLOOMBERG

- U.S. tourism has enjoyed a robust run for a decade. The travel industry has grown for 116 consecutive months, according to the U.S. Travel Association. Meanwhile, the supply of hotel rooms has expanded by about 12% in the past decade.

- Certain markets have grown far faster, including Nashville, where the number of rooms is up 32% since 2009, as well as Charleston and the North Carolina mountain retreat of Asheville, up 23% and 21%, respectively.

While European destinations such as Venice and Barcelona are famously overrun, some of America’s small historic cities are starting to buckle from a prolonged boom in tourism—and rightly or wrongly, locals are directing some of their anger at hoteliers.

- Four hours away from Charleston, city leaders in Asheville just passed a moratorium on hotel construction that could last for a year. The Martian landscape around tiny Moab, Utah, has lured so many adventure-seekers that the city temporarily stopped accepting new lodging applications amid concerns hotels were edging out housing and offices.

- Developers feel unjustly singled out. Jim Brady is trying to develop a 135-room hotel in Portland, Maine, where city leaders recently required new hotels to pay into an affordable housing fund, arguing that hospitality workers are being priced out.

- In Charleston, a decades-long effort to nurture tourism without spoiling the city’s 350-year-old heritage reached a boiling point recently. Former Mayor Joseph Riley presided over the “Holy City” for 40 years until 2016, and since then the city’s politics have been rife with infighting, locals say. Mayor John Tecklenburg campaigned on a pledge to temporarily halt new hotel construction as a candidate in 2015 and continued the fight upon taking office.