[geekster777]

I live in a tourist town (population 45k, with 2M visitors this past season). It's truly lovely. Our museums kick ass, the food and cocktails punch above their weight, and there are countless activities in the off season. Sure, I can get a cheaper burger or pay less rent just a few miles down the road, but instead I stay and benefit from tourists pushing the quality upwards. I often see folks focusing on the low-effort schlock shop, damning all tourists, before heading to one of the 8 local coffee shops (who could never survive on locals alone). The best thing a local can do is to openly give recommendations, helping to hold competition and quality to a high standard.

[vintermann]

That could well be my town. Much of what you say is true. The main street, which was hard hit from a shopping center taking all business away from the city centre, has two nice (non chain) coffee places. There's also a (non chain) Italian place which is excellent. But there's also, I think about 5 pure tourist tat shops. One with a very prominent AI generated moose. Those are what make money. They extract the value that the actually good places create, and in return they drive up rent for the good places.

One of the reasons the shopping center did so well in the first place, was that they could charge lower rents for shops which bring more value to the center than they capture themselves (such as cafes) and higher rents to shops which make money but whose social contribution is low or negative (like betting shops or tourist tat shops).