Just think about how much you and your family spend on one vacation. Plane tickets, gas, food, hotels, souvenirs, speeding tickets in Nebraska, amusement park admission, etc. Now multiply that by a tens of millions families taking vacation. In Denver last year alone, 7 million tourists visited the metro area. These tourists spent $2.2 billion.
According to a newly released book The Tourist City edited by Dennis R. Judd, urban cities are increasingly becoming international tourism magnets. The author points out the Harborplace/Camden Yards in Baltimore. Apparently all the worthwhile attractions are squeezed together within the city so the tourists don't have to be "contaminated" by the people who actually live there. Also according to the author, these cities are taking their cue from the success of DisneyWorld thus part of the reason for "containing" the city.
Yet another related to vacations is Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States by Cindy Aron. In this book she discusses how times have changed for vacationing Americans. Gone are the days that wealthy families willed away the summer days at a vacation home and dad took the train up to join them on the weekends. Now vacationers take a week at the "Disney Institute" and enroll in classes that teach gourmet cooking, writing, and cartoon animation. Or we head to a spa where they challenge us physically and let us eat rabbit food in the evening, hoping we'll shed a few pounds by the end of the week. Professor Aron includes the following trivia questions in her book, can you answer them?
When asked to choose between Al Gore and Jesse Ventura, who did a majority of registered voters say they would prefer to spend their summer vacations with?
Okay, that one was too easy.
Among the 912 registered voters surveyed, Ventura (44 percent) was favored over Gore (22 percent).
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