In the book, is the tourism is driven primarily by the inherent novelty and wonder of being on the moon, seeing Earth, experiencing the weaker gravity, etc., or is the draw primarily based on facilities that have been built there, like casinos, resorts, amusement parks, etc.?
My guess is that you would need to have a lot of the latter, because while the former would be undoubtedly cool, I’m afraid the novelty would wear off quickly if the living and entertainment facilities themselves were anything less than spectacular.
This is a fascinating thoughtsploration. Tourism on the moon will be a real version of the Jurassic Park narrative concept:
Enterprising, wealthy, and somewhat eccentric genius opens space theme park, pushing the boundaries of the possible whilst simultaneously exposing your crew and visitors to near infinite risks because it has never been done before and is almost the definition of unnatural.
If resurrecting dinosaurs via ancient DNA could possibly be a thing (pretty sure it can't), I wonder how big dinosaurs could get on the moon. I believe gravity was the limiting factor in how big land based dinosaurs could get, so how big could get in Lunar Jurassic Park in ~1/6th Earth gravity.
The low gravity is probably what I would have the most fun with. I can imagine all sorts of activities could get a lot more fun. I could learn to do a standing backflip, or even manage to finally break 400lb on my deadlift. :)
Wouldn't trying to deadlift more than 400 pounds be the same amount of effort on the moon? Granted, it would have to be that much more massive, so it would certainly LOOK more impressive.
My guess is that you would need to have a lot of the latter, because while the former would be undoubtedly cool, I’m afraid the novelty would wear off quickly if the living and entertainment facilities themselves were anything less than spectacular.