Perfecting the Balance Between Tourists and Locals
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Hello, and welcome to Slate Money Travel. I'm Felix Salmon of Axios. I'm here with Emily Peck of Axios. Hello, hello. I'm here with Elizabeth Spires of the New York Times. Hello. And we are going to talk about how much things cost these days.

And specifically, because we are not actually boomers, we are going to talk about how much things cost in towns where there are a lot of tourists. And I have this theory, which I have been waiting to spring upon my interlocutors here, which is that if you are flying to a tourist destination...

You are spending a lot on plane tickets. You are spending a lot on hotels. This is a large, expensive thing you could spend, as we also heard in this series from Hilary Frey, like $5,000 just going to Disneyland for four days. So at that point, everything else kind of becomes a rounding error.

And so an expensive meal, an expensive museum visit, something like that. It's just like, well, you know, I've spent all of this money now. It's an extra less than 1% on the total cost of the trip. It's the experience I'm coming for. If you're going all the way to Amsterdam, then it doesn't really matter how much you spend to go to the Rijksmuseum because that's the whole point. And percentage-wise, it's nothing. Whereas if you live in Amsterdam or

Or if you live in New York and you want to go to a museum or see a Broadway show or something like that, then the price really matters. And so I feel like a lot of these towns that have a lot of tourists have one set of price-sensitive customers and one set of price-insensitive customers for the same experiential goods, whether it's restaurant meals or museum tickets or Broadway shows or whatever.

And this seems to me to be a really difficult tension to deal with. And so, Elizabeth, you're a New Yorker. Do you ever think to yourself,

This is dumb. I shouldn't be paying this much for this experience. I'm blaming the tourists. I think the only scenario where I do that really is Broadway shows because I also think because we're all in New York, we have a kind of distorted notion of how tourism affects cities because our tourists...

are heavily contained in the Times Square area. So they're not, you know, all over New York. And they have very specific things they want to do. And New Yorkers are also just used to paying through the nose for everything already. That's true. This is more of an issue in...

less wealthy cities, I think. Well, also, I feel like there are tourist restaurants and there are like, quote unquote, like local restaurants and there's tourist trap type restaurants where it's just everything is much more expensive and tourists are happy to pay it because maybe they don't know better. Maybe that they're experiencing what you said. They've already spent the thousands of dollars and now they're like, whatever.

$50 for a burger, I don't care. But typically locals don't go to those same places. But I thought it was interesting to think about from what you were saying and what you just said, like there are some places where you both are going, like museums, Broadway shows, things like that. And it does seem like there should be like discounts for locals in those situations, which I believe in New York there are some discounts like that for some of the museums. If you live in New York, you can get into the Metropolitan Museum for free. Yeah. Yeah.

But they'll give you a nasty look if you ask to do so. But you can. The question of tourist restaurants is an interesting one because I feel like if you say the word tourist restaurant, everyone thinks of the Olive Garden in Times Square. And no self-respecting New Yorker would ever go to the Olive Garden in Times Square. But also, there is a very...

deep and large pool of culinary tourists, right? And they want to tick off the, you know, they want to go to 11 Madison Park and they want to go to all of the other like hot restaurants of the minute that have just opened up. And they are,

And especially when you're talking about anything with Michelin stars, I feel like Le Bernardin is actually a really good example, which is, you know, it has a celebrity chef. It's right near Times Square. I think that they charge significantly more than maybe they could if it wasn't for tourists. Yeah, the high end culinary experience.

tourist trap, basically. It's like very fancy, very expensive, very famous. But still, at the end of the day, it's like going to whatever the 50s themed diner in Times Square. You know, another thing is just the rise of food reality TV. I think there are a lot of sort of mid-tier chefs who have become national names because of shows like Top Chef and

and people are more educated about different culinary styles. And so I think it goes further than just the Michelin, you know, very high-end places. They come to New York, you know, they will go see a chef that would otherwise be a little bit obscure that they only know about because now they're watching these people on YouTube and television. Yeah, I remember when Bobby Flay opened this huge restaurant on like Broadway in Houston around there. And...

And you're like, how on earth does he fill this place up every night? And the answer is clearly tourists. Yeah, which seems fine. But then does the price rise for all restaurants? Or maybe a better question is just like, if you are a tourist and you want to have a nice authentic experience, whatever that means, when you go visit a city...

How do you figure out exactly where to go? Maybe Felix has some tips because he travels a lot. What do you do? Because if you just look online or you're looking at your TikTok feed, you're just going to wind up at the very expensive place and buy the $20 donut, which we know how I feel about that. So, no, I think this is especially an issue in...

Mexico City and to a lesser extent in Tokyo is that these are enormous cities with literally thousands of restaurants and literally thousands of really really good restaurants and there's some mechanism whereby all of the tourists wind up going to the same 25 restaurants

and everyone's like on the Googles going, what is the best restaurant in Mexico City? What is the best restaurant? And they always want to go to the best, basically like partly for this exact reason, right? Which is I spent so much money coming here. I only have so much vacation per year. I want to optimize and maximize the value that I'm getting from this trip. So I want the best because...

if especially in mexico city you know if you wind up spending a hundred dollars for me or rather than fifty dollars for meal that extra fifty dollars is not important to you where you you feel like if you've got the best meal that's really important so everyone winds up converging on a handful of what become like very touristy um gastro tourist traps and all of the other amazing restaurants in the city

are amazing restaurants that people don't really go to. And so one of the things I very much try to do when I'm traveling, especially in someone like Mexico city is to try to avoid those restaurants because these are great food towns and you can literally pick a restaurant at random and it's going to be great. Yeah. I think there are two different kinds of tourists though. There are people who travel and it's a kind of extraordinary experience because they only get maybe two weeks off a year and then there's Felix.

who travels a lot for fun, you know, and you're an experienced traveler, so you know how to find those places. I think there are a lot of people who will, for instance, come to New York City and they think of it like this is the only time I'm going to go to New York City, so I have to see the Statue of Liberty, I have to see a Broadway show, whatever. They need to like check off the box. And I think that's probably most casual travelers, especially people who don't travel for work. I think there

there needs to be a rethinking of this notion of the best restaurant. 100%. Because it's not just, it's not just about the food. I had this experience. I don't travel a lot, full disclosure, but I recently came into Manhattan with my daughter and her friend. That counts. That's traveling for you. And my daughter loves like Japanese and Korean and Chinese food. So I'm like,

what's the best place we could go? Like, what's the ideal spot? I asked all these different people. I asked one of our colleagues at Axios, who's really good at recommendations. She gave me a list and I had the list and I was like, okay, girls, this is where we're going to go. It was like some dumpling place. And we walked all the way over this dumpling place. We got there, it was packed. And it was like,

It was so packed that the three of us did not want to be there. Like, who cares how good the dumplings are? For real. So we were like, they were like, we don't care. And I'm like, I don't care. We walked out two doors down. There was like a great Korean restaurant. We sat down. I think it was, no, it was Japanese. It was ramen. Two doors down, great ramen place.

Kind of empty, which is sometimes can be a warning sign, but it was kind of a weird time of day. Sat down, delicious meal, amazing service. Like my daughter still talks about it. She's remember that place we went and I'm like, yeah. So that was the best place. Exactly. That was the best place. And one of the things that has happened in the age of TikTok is that perfectly normal average places just blow up and suddenly have a line around the block. Yeah.

for no reason. And you're like, and like places which, you know, someone like me as a New Yorker who lives in Manhattan has been going to for years, something I can't get into anymore because they've become TikTok famous. And I'm like, there is literally zero reason why this place should be TikTok famous, but it is. So I'm just going to have to go somewhere else. And, but I do think that what you experienced and what most tourists experience is, um,

Just basically a level of insecurity. Like, I don't know this town. I'm not a local. I want someone to hold my hand and tell me where to go. And the places where someone will tell you where to go is always going to be the same list of places. And so they are going to be crowded. And if you don't like the crowds, you just have to...

accept the discomfort of going somewhere where you don't have a prior recommendation and it will probably be fine. - Accept the discomfort, that's so true. - I mean, but I have a family full of casual travelers that we were talking about and I think part of the joy for them is to go to the same places that their friends went so that when they come home, they can all compare notes

So I would agree with you. I would do exactly that. And I think there's a generational thing too. I think everyone I know who's a Gen Xer is kind of like, I don't want to go to the really popular place. I want the one that nobody knows about, that only I can have that exclusive experience. I have so many Gen X friends who like, you know, if there's one...

Place in the city with two Michelin stars and his famous chef. They're gonna book that place months in advance and they only we spent $600 ahead to go to this amazing restaurant and it was so worth it was amazing and and you have all of that sense of anticipation And it's on the San Pellegrino list and you get to tick off this thing and you know get the 20 course tasting menu and I would rather like get kicked in the head by an ass, but This is a thing that people do but I

If that's what you want, I am not going to cry for the locals who want to go to the 20-course tasting menu at the Michelin star. Whatever. Those people I don't care about. I do care about just the good local restaurant which somehow... Well, put it this way. I don't begrudge those restaurants the crowds.

You know, if they win the TikTok lottery and they get to have lots of crowds and become popular and make lots of money, like being a restaurateur is not easy. So like all power to you. I don't think some of them liked it. I might botch this example, but a few years ago there was like a review. I feel like it was like best hamburger in Philadelphia or something. Someone should fact check and call. But that review led to the masses showing up at this burger spots, you know, door, long lines, big...

big crowds, restaurant hated it. It was like too much overwhelming. They didn't want it. And I think the reviewer wound up apologizing or issuing some kind of apology or something like went out and said, I kind of regret doing this to this poor restaurant.

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Moving away from restaurants, how do we think about museums?

I think there should be a discount for locals, for sure. Do you think the Museum of Modern Art should have a discount for locals? You know, I should. That place is very expensive and it's not right. Yes, I do. I think it should have a discount for locals. Yes.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And like basically all of them, the Frick and the Whitney and like they're all private museums, but they should charge us for it. In theory, some of your taxpayer money is supporting those institutions. Yes, there needs to be more like public spaces and you should be able to benefit from them, even if you live in a big touristy spot, especially if you do. The way they do it,

The way the discount for locals works in practice is it's called membership and you wind up paying more, but then you get to go return as many times as you like. And so you get to go there like,

20 times a year if that's what you want. No, that doesn't count. What do you think? I don't think that counts. I don't think that counts. It's adjacent, but not exactly the same. I mean, in theory, a lot of the New York museums say if you really can't afford to pay, like it's a suggested donation. No, I think that's just the bet. Like the big private museums don't do that. The Met is a public museum, so it's different. Yeah.

My local libraries actually have. You can go to the library and take out a pass to any of the New York City museums. That's like a benefit they have. There should be more of that. The public museums are good. We like those. The public library does that for all the different museums, I believe. My family. But it doesn't do it for the MoMA. It doesn't do it for the WIPI. Probably not. Yeah. They should absolutely have a discount for locals. I mean...

The reason Museum of Modern Art can charge so much is because of all the tourists coming, right? Correct. So there should be some kind of arbitrage. They should raise the price for tourists a little more and then charge a distance to do that. And this is actually very common in many of the countries that I visited, is there is like a different price for locals. And, you know, I was just in Doha, you know, and the...

median income in Doha is very low. It's a lot of, you know, underpaid workers. And so if you live there, you want to go to the National Museum, you pay 25 cents or something. But if you're a

Tourist you pay $25 and that seems fine to me. Yeah, that's exactly how it should be. That's perfect So more of that. Yeah. Oh and less of on the flip side in reading preparing to talk about this important topic I read a lot about Like tourist cities charging like fees to travelers to sort of discourage them from coming Venice I think what I read was a lot

Five euro fee that doesn't seem enough to discourage anything given what we're doing. Okay, so this is crazy. Okay, the whole premise of this conversation is that Five euros is not going to dissuade the tourists from doing anything. Yeah, and yet I

When Venice put in this fee, and to be clear, this is a fee on day trippers, basically. If you're staying in the city, if you're in a hotel in the city, there's probably a hotel tax or something like that. But what they were finding was that there were a bunch of people who are either on cruise ships or were staying in Verona or somewhere like that and would come in for the day and were...

contributing to the crowds but weren't really contributing to the economy. They would bring like a packed lunch, you know. And so they're like, we're just going to charge you five euros. And weirdly, it had an effect. It actually reduced the number of tourists packing the Piazza San Marco. It does undermine your theory completely.

Well, I think maybe cruise ships are like a special animal because there are also cities that have limited the number of people on a cruise who can come or the number of cruise ships that can dock. And so I would imagine even for the cruise companies, it would be a giant pain in the ass to have to deal with that $5 fee for every person on the ship. I feel like the cruise companies can deal with the $5 fee. But yeah, it does seem to have worked. And I'm surprised. I'm surprised how...

Much of an effect a nine dollar congestion charge had on traffic in Manhattan You know these things are things that you think people would be willing to pay and it and when you introduce them people are like

Like how, like seriously, Venice is just such an amazing city. You're really not going to go there because it's going to cost you five bucks. But maybe it's the most price sensitive day tripper people who was like, we could stay, we could go somewhere else for the day. It's not like they're planning a whole event. Well, also the day trippers I would imagine are like, oh, we've been to Venice a million times. Like do we, maybe we should go somewhere else. Yeah. We already have our lunch packed.

Just go somewhere else. It's going to be full of the other tourists. The weird thing is that there is a lot of price sensitivity among tourists precisely because they're spending so much money for the planes and the hotels and stuff. They're like, shit, now I have no money left. But by the same token, you know, someone's spending $900 on tickets to Othello. Lots of people have a lot of money right now.

Even as we worry about recession. I can't stop thinking about the you know, Australian tourists who are buying Tickets to some Broadway play who I saw quoted and it made so much sense, you know, they were spending $2,000 on like dinner on a movie basically or dinner and a play and

And you're like, they're like, oh, yeah, we flew here from Sydney and we flew business class. So at that point, that's like, you know, between the two of them, that's like $30,000 or something. At that point, nothing matters. Just compared to the flights, like the hotel, even $1,000 a night for the hotel doesn't really mean anything.

I also think if people come into a city knowing that it's going to be expensive and they're prepared to spend money, their entire mindset changes. They're suddenly, you know, the Arrested Development character is like, what's it cost? What's a banana cost, Michael? $12? It's, you know, they just completely recalibrate what they're willing to pay for stuff because they assume that they're just in a totally different environment where...

Or you do travel math, which I learned this on TikTok, which is you go and you stay in a hotel and it's not all inclusive, but you just charge it to the room and you don't think about it. You don't worry about it. So money doesn't matter anymore. You're like, this meal, it's free. It's on the hotel. No, you're charging it to the room, but it doesn't feel like anything because you haven't taken out a credit card or put down cash. They already put a temporary hold on my card for this money. You just don't.

There is no greater ripoff than the hotel breakfast. But it's so nice. Sometimes it's nice. You get that pot of coffee, the silver pot. Oh, I love it. Oh my gosh. And the fruit looks so beautiful. I do not like that. The one thing I will say is there is nothing more expensive than a free luxury hotel room.

You know, it's almost like we'll give you this hotel room for free. And then all you need to do is pay your incidentals. And those incidentals will cost more than, you know, an expense like a perfectly nice hotel room. But like emotionally and mentally, it's OK. You still got a free room, right? So what if you had to spend $40 for that pot of coffee? It's delightful and you can have it in the bed and you don't care if you spill on the bed. And it's wonderful.

There you go. Make sure you get a $40 pot of coffee. Or whatever it costs. It's totally worth it. How much is a pot of coffee? They really can. They really can.

Okay, so where have we wound up with this? Like we just want maximal amounts of price discrimination against tourists. Yeah, what's the algorithmic pricing? That thing Wendy's was going to do a while back. Remember we talked about it where they're going to charge different, yeah, just charge different people. Time of day or whatever. Time of day. And I think companies are secretly moving in this direction already, charging different people different amounts. Yeah.

based on what they can afford, sort of, or what they can be milked for, I guess, is the more cynical way of looking at it. So I think I'm in favor of that.

And do you think we can make it work on Broadway somehow? I really want Broadway tickets to come down because I really love Broadway right now. Oh, I was going to ask you though, is all this, are we peak this conversation? Because tourism now, it seems, well, at least tourism to the United States is dropping off. So like maybe ticket prices will come down. Maybe this is the silver lining to...

the Trump immigration restrictions and no one wanting to come to America anymore is that I'll be able to go to the opera and not spend $500. Yeah, there you go. Brilliant. Way to spin it.

We need to stick it to the liberals of New York City. We get cheap opera tickets. Yay! Okay, I think that's it for Slate Money Travel. Thanks very much to Elizabeth and Emily. And thanks very much as well to Shana Roth and Merit Jacob and Jasmine Molly and Hilary Fry and the cast of thousands who put this together. And we'll be back next week with more Slate Money.