Vacation in Detroit ?

[Bham1982]

Yes it is. I would say being consistently within the top 10 American cities for intl tourists makes you a main center.

Not really. Chicago is the third largest U.S. city, but barely in the top 10 for international visitors. Seems like a pretty big under performer relative to size. It gets fewer international visitors than even Boston, which doesn't get many international flights.

And I never said Chicago doesn't get international visitors. I said it doesn't get international leisure tourists. Chicago is a huge business center and is a primary international airport gateway city.

It's the only city, besides Las Vegas for obvious reasons, that's not on the coast or in a warmer climate.

Not true. Cities with higher tourist counts aren't on either coast, besides Vegas.

What this has to do with visitor counts, I have no idea, as Chicago is one of the biggest international flight hubs in North America. Among the big cities, only NYC, LA, and SF get more international airport travelers.

Paris, the most popular city for visitors anywhere on earth, isn't on a coast. Doesn't have warm climate either.

Walk down Michigan or State and you'll for sure hear 20 different languages spoken by obvious tourists.

This is nonsense. State Street isn't even a popular street for domestic tourists, or even Chicagoans. It hasn't been the retail center for 40 years.

Michigan Ave. is a hugely popular street for visitors, but mostly from the Midwest. Won't hear many foreign languages while waiting in line at the mall stores. It's mostly fanny packed heifers from Iowa, Indiana and the like, but they spend money, so it's all good.

[animatedmartian]

Yes it is. I would say being consistently within the top 10 American cities for intl tourists makes you a main center.

http://www.travelersdigest.com/5968-...ign-travelers/

http://skift.com/2014/06/18/20-most-...elers-in-2013/

It's the only city, besides Las Vegas for obvious reasons, that's not on the coast or in a warmer climate. International tourist go to the coasts first then when they want to go inland, they flock to Chicago. Walk down Michigan or State and you'll for sure hear 20 different languages spoken by obvious tourists.

But wait a minute, number 9 and number 2 on that most visitors list contradict what posters have been saying in this thread. Boston and Los Angeles? What could possibly be in Boston to draw in more visitors than Chicago? And don't people have to rent cars and drive around for 20 miles in Los Angeles? In heavy traffic no less? Aren't Santa Monica and West Hollywood suburbs? And Houston don't even get me started.

[iheartthed]

Yes it is. I would say being consistently within the top 10 American cities for intl tourists makes you a main center.

http://www.travelersdigest.com/5968-...ign-travelers/

http://skift.com/2014/06/18/20-most-...elers-in-2013/

It's the only city, besides Las Vegas for obvious reasons, that's not on the coast or in a warmer climate. International tourist go to the coasts first then when they want to go inland, they flock to Chicago. Walk down Michigan or State and you'll for sure hear 20 different languages spoken by obvious tourists.

I would not have expected Boston to get more international visitors than Chicago. That's pretty surprising. Chicago seems to be punching well below its weight. But what might be dragging Chicago down is that there aren't other draws in close proximity. Boston and DC benefit from their proximity to NYC. LA, SF, Vegas and San Diego can also trade tourists back and forth. Orlando and Miami can do that too. But everything near Chicago has the perception of being a wasteland. If Detroit were in better shape that would probably be a boon to Chicago tourism.

[SWMAP]

Some enlightenment here:

http://www.freep.com/article/2013121...ourism-creager

Says Detroit is a Fodor's Must-See City.

[poobert]

I would not have expected Boston to get more international visitors than Chicago. That's pretty surprising. Chicago seems to be punching well below its weight. But what might be dragging Chicago down is that there aren't other draws in close proximity. Boston and DC benefit from their proximity to NYC. LA, SF, Vegas and San Diego can also trade tourists back and forth. Orlando and Miami can do that too. But everything near Chicago has the perception of being a wasteland. If Detroit were in better shape that would probably be a boon to Chicago tourism.

Boston doesn't surprise me. It's unparalleled historical significance and walkable charm are a huge draw. It's a relatively small but endlessly fascinating city.

Detroit's lack of a draw of a tourist destination doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is that many of those same reasons translate into a poor quality of life. That's the whole Metro, mind you.

You're stuck in a car for most of your life, with deteriorating roads and drivers [[and pedestrians, see Steve Utash) who are ready to murder you at the drop of a hat. It's a pretty drab, dreary, post-industrial area, with virtually nothing to offer in terms of outdoor recreation and enjoyment. You could easily bike the entire "river walk" in an hour, and other than that, the river is inaccessible. There's still nothing to do on Belle Isle, the only other real access to the water. Some crummy, seedy malls, sprawling auto plants, some open, some shuttered. Aluminum-sided box houses as far as the eye can see, many vacant or soon-to-be. It's really a rather dystopian place to live. Not much to do besides eat and drink yourself blind, if you're an engineer or something and have the money to do so. Take Royal Oak, for example. What a Potemkin village. Park your car, get shitfaced, get pulled over, what is there to do besides that? It's like 2 blocks of bars and nothing else. What's the point?

[dtowncitylover]

This is nonsense. State Street isn't even a popular street for domestic tourists, or even Chicagoans. It hasn't been the retail center for 40 years.

Michigan Ave. is a hugely popular street for visitors, but mostly from the Midwest. Won't hear many foreign languages while waiting in line at the mall stores. It's mostly fanny packed heifers from Iowa, Indiana and the like, but they spend money, so it's all good.

Ah ok so all those stores and people are just a mirage.

And what cities above Chicago are not on the coast and/or in a warm climate?

For as "isolated" as Chicago is to the rest of American centers, I would say it's doing pretty well for international tourists.

[iheartthed]

Boston doesn't surprise me. It's unparalleled historical significance and walkable charm are a huge draw. It's a relatively small but endlessly fascinating city.

Detroit's lack of a draw of a tourist destination doesn't really bother me. What bothers me is that many of those same reasons translate into a poor quality of life. That's the whole Metro, mind you.

I'm not surprised that Boston ranks high as a destination but to be in the same league as Chicago is quite a feat for a city that 1) isn't singularly focused on tourism [[Orlando, Las Vegas, Honolulu), and 2) is a fraction of the size of Chicago.

ETA: Also, it doesn't look like Boston is the outlier. It looks like Chicago is the outlier...

You're right, though, Detroit's lack of draw as a tourist destination is related to urban quality of life issues. People probably don't visit for the same reasons the city has struggled to attract residents. [[No it's not the fucking schools, let's just get that out of the way now.)

[Spartan]

The problem with Detroit tourism isn't a lack of attractions, it's the difficulty in traversing between them. Detroit has many world class destinations, including some that are unique to Detroit. [[Keeping the list only to attractions within 15-20 minutes or so)

- DIA [[top 10 in US)
- Detroit Zoo [[top 10 in US)
- Henry Ford & Greenfield Village [[one of a kind)
- Ford Piquette and River Rouge plants
- Motown Museum [[one of a kind)
- World-class architecture, specifically in Art Deco [[specifically, Guardian and Fisher)
- Top-notch entertainment district [[second largest theater district in the US)
- Top-notch sports city
- World-class festivals and events [[Jazz Fest, Movement, Dream Cruise)
- Heidelberg Project [[unfortunately, this is mostly gone)
- Detroit Riverfront
- Belle Isle [[one of the largest city parks in the country)
- Campus Martius

However, you absolutely MUST rent a car in Detroit, unless you're willing to spend hundreds in transportation. This is especially difficult for international travelers. If you go downtown/midtown, you could probably make a weekend of it [[although it will cost you $50+ to get there from the airport). However, getting to the Zoo, the Henry Ford, etc becomes difficult. You could easily spend a week vacationing in Detroit and seeing things you'd rarely see in other cities. Unfortunately, you'd spend about a day of it driving around as well.

[MSUguy]

There's not much of an art museum to see, you can cover it in one hour. Not much of a zoo. There's little live theater.

You are clueless. The DIA is the fifth largest fine art museums in the U.S, you're not covering that in an hour and our theater district is bigger than Chicago. You maybe you better just not coming back at all.

[noise]

- Detroit Zoo [[top 10 in US)

I hate to harp on this zoo thing, as I think Detroit is a fine vacation spot in the way most US cities are, but where did this "top 10" ranking come from? Who is regarding the Detroit Zoo so highly?

A Google search was fruitless.

[Islandman]

Great post Spartan, and absolutely correct. I'll be "vacationing" next week in Detroit, and will have to rent a car. It's an added expense that I don't have here in Albany. Here the buses run within +- 3 minutes of schedule, which is available via an app on my phone. The buses also also accept swipe cards, and I utilize the bus daily to get to work.

Alternately, there are tons of reliable cab companies. Amtrak station is 10 minutes by cab and NYC is 2.5 hours away while traveling very comfortably on a train with power and free wireless.

Many Detroiters just don't realize the stress of sitting on 696/94/75 every day puts on them. We just had a Microsoft guy doing a short term contract that was flying in every week from Sterling Heights quit unexpectedly. His main reason? Commuting to the damn airport from Sterling Heights twice a week. That is enough to drive anyone mad.

[animatedmartian]

However, you absolutely MUST rent a car in Detroit, unless you're willing to spend hundreds in transportation. This is especially difficult for international travelers. If you go downtown/midtown, you could probably make a weekend of it [[although it will cost you $50+ to get there from the airport). However, getting to the Zoo, the Henry Ford, etc becomes difficult. You could easily spend a week vacationing in Detroit and seeing things you'd rarely see in other cities. Unfortunately, you'd spend about a day of it driving around as well.

This doesn't make any sense to me. If someone is visiting Chicago or NYC, they're doing the same thing; spending a considerable amount of time traveling. It's something that's expected to happen.

When I went to Chicago, I used the CTA. Waited like 10 minutes for a bus at Navy Pier so I can get to the Sears Tower. Waited for another bus when going from the Sears Tower to one of the museums in the park. Waited for another bus to get to an event in the Southside of Chicago. Very few cities actually have everything within a proximity that doesn't require anything more than walking. In any city, you're going to spend a considerable amount of time in either a train, a bus, or a car, be it a taxi or a rental, and it's going to cost money. That's poor planning on the part of the tourist if they don't take that into consideration.

The only thing "difficult" would be the costs. Maybe it is more expensive to travel around Detroit compared to more compact and transit-oriented cities, but this other nonsense about it taking to much time to get across town is silly. A 15 minute travel is going to be the same 15 minutes in every other city.

[preserve]

Who really takes a long vacation to another city? Most of us do a 4 day weekend of site seeing.
No one mentioned the river tour, Diamond Jack cruise. When in other cities, it's always nice to take their river cruises and see the city from the water. Even Cleveland looks good from the boat.
The museums do take way more than an hour to appreciate. I always take folks to the Historical Museum first. The whole purpose of seeing other cities is to see what they have to offer, not necessarily to go shopping. Chain stores are chain stores. Boston has great history,
Cleveland and Pittsburgh are revitalized cities and also offer history, maybe of industry, but history nevertheless. I think vacation is misused. Europeans have vacations, we have odd days off and maybe a week here and there, but still connected to the job.

[iheartthed]

This doesn't make any sense to me. If someone is visiting Chicago or NYC, they're doing the same thing; spending a considerable amount of time traveling. It's something that's expected to happen.

Actually, you can walk between many of NYC's tourist spots. The walk from the Empire State Building to Central Park is less than 30 minutes. All of Midtown Manhattan's tourist traps are between those two locations. The Financial District is even more compact than midtown. You can get from the World Trade Center to Wall Street in less than 10 minutes by foot.

[Bham1982]

Who really takes a long vacation to another city? Most of us do a 4 day weekend of site seeing.

I've spent a week or more in a single city, but not generally in the U.S. I don't think it's super-odd. I could easily spend 6 months somewhere like Paris and never get bored.

I think, in the U.S., if we're talking "urban" vacationing [[so forget Orlando and Vegas), you could do NYC or LA for a week. I've done both for a week+ and had very busy days.

Miami possibly too, but probably a stretch. SF or DC or NOLA 4-5 days max for most people. Boston, Chicago, Philly would probably be more of a long weekend for most visitors. Besides that, any other U.S. city would probably be more of day or weekend trip.

[animatedmartian]

<br>
<br>Actually, you can walk between many of NYC's tourist spots. &nbsp;The walk from the Empire State Building to Central Park is less than 30 minutes. &nbsp;All of Midtown Manhattan's tourist traps are between those two locations. &nbsp;The Financial District is even more compact than midtown. &nbsp;You can get from the World Trade Center to Wall Street in less than 10 minutes by foot.

That's my point. If it takes 30 minutes to walk between ESB and Central Park, how is that any different than 30 minutes from Campus Martius to Henry Ford Village? The distance covered is obviously significantly different, but it's still 30 minutes spent traveling.

[Bham1982]

Boston and Los Angeles? What could possibly be in Boston to draw in more visitors than Chicago? And don't people have to rent cars and drive around for 20 miles in Los Angeles? In heavy traffic no less? Aren't Santa Monica and West Hollywood suburbs? And Houston don't even get me started.

I don't really think that Boston has more to offer than Chicago, but I think they're roughly comparable in terms of visitor attractions. The advantage with Boston probably lies in the history, the charming, 17th/18th century neighborhoods not existing outside the Northeast, and maybe iconic Harvard Square. Chicago is bigger and has more stuff but Boston is a bit more distinctive and better located from a tourist perspective [[New England is gorgeous compared to rural Illinois/Indiana).

LA is a beast and despite the DYes bias against sprawly cities is very visitor friendly. I love visiting LA and never run out of things to do. You rent a car dirt-cheap [[$30 a day or less) and can go anywhere. Obviously many of the attractions [[Disney, Knotts, beaches, missions, etc.) are not really LA-specific but Southern CA. and are not tied to urbanity.

[Bham1982]

Also Boston is not that small. People always form their impressions based on population of city limits, but metro area comparisons are probably more reasonable. The Boston MSA has around 5 million people, and the Boston CSA has around 8 million people.

The economic output is considerable too. It's a wealthy metro area. Boston had a gross economic product of 514 billion in 2013, compared to 597 billion for Chicago and 262 billion for Detroit. Boston probably receives a decent amount of business travelers, both domestic and international.

[Bham1982]

The problem with Detroit tourism isn't a lack of attractions, it's the difficulty in traversing between them. Detroit has many world class destinations, including some that are unique to Detroit. [[Keeping the list only to attractions within 15-20 minutes or so)

- DIA [[top 10 in US)
- Detroit Zoo [[top 10 in US)
- Henry Ford & Greenfield Village [[one of a kind)
- Ford Piquette and River Rouge plants
- Motown Museum [[one of a kind)
- World-class architecture, specifically in Art Deco [[specifically, Guardian and Fisher)
- Top-notch entertainment district [[second largest theater district in the US)
- Top-notch sports city
- World-class festivals and events [[Jazz Fest, Movement, Dream Cruise)
- Heidelberg Project [[unfortunately, this is mostly gone)
- Detroit Riverfront
- Belle Isle [[one of the largest city parks in the country)
- Campus Martius

Most of these things aren't unique, though.

Belle Isle is pretty ill-maintained and big urban parks aren't rare.
A riverfront isn't a rare thing. Almost all cities have waterfronts of some sort.
Big cities tend to have big festivals and events. Also not rare.
Campus Martius is the main intersection. Not rare.
Sports are a function of population. Not rare.
Architecture, on average, kind of sucks. There are some notable buildings, but this is true in almost all big metros. Nice pre-war office buildings though.

Motown Museum, ok, that is unique, but it's a house.
Henry Ford/Greenfield is unique but less of a museum and more of a rich dude's weird collections of random stuff from random locations
Factory tours are kind of unique, but most people don't care. "Hon, forget Aruba this year, let's fly to Detroit and tour an auto plant".
Heidelberg is totally unique and horrible and that's not a good thing for Detroit's competitiveness
Zoo and art museum are quite good but, again, not enough of a draw on their own

[DetroitPlanner]

Bring back Autoworld!

[dtowncitylover]

Most of these things aren't unique, though.

Belle Isle is pretty ill-maintained and big urban parks aren't rare.
A riverfront isn't a rare thing. Almost all cities have waterfronts of some sort.
Big cities tend to have big festivals and events. Also not rare.
Campus Martius is the main intersection. Not rare.
Sports are a function of population. Not rare.
Architecture, on average, kind of sucks. There are some notable buildings, but this is true in almost all big metros. Nice pre-war office buildings though.

Motown Museum, ok, that is unique, but it's a house.
Henry Ford/Greenfield is unique but less of a museum and more of a rich dude's weird collections of random stuff from random locations
Factory tours are kind of unique, but most people don't care. "Hon, forget Aruba this year, let's fly to Detroit and tour an auto plant".
Heidelberg is totally unique and horrible and that's not a good thing for Detroit's competitiveness
Zoo and art museum are quite good but, again, not enough of a draw on their own

Welp, I guess since all cities basically have the same thing we should all just stop visiting them. Nevermind the fact that, while they might be similar, they're in a different environment that might help re-imagine people's perspective on life and help invigorate creativity and understanding.

Some people don't like Aruba. They don't want to lounge around 24/7 drinking and tanning. They want to see people, explore places, and learn. Detroit can offer all three in a different way Chicago, NY, or Boston can. All cities are different and you will learn different things.

And Heidelberg is an art project. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's horrible. And frankly to have something that unique and interesting might be good for Detroit's competitiveness with creative cities like SanFran or Portland.

And obviously you've been living under a rock for sometime or would know that Belle Isle has come a long way since the takeover. Urban parks aren't rare, but BI offers beautiful views of the city and waterways and a country-like atmosphere in the middle.

[dtowncitylover]

Architecture, on average, kind of sucks. There are some notable buildings, but this is true in almost all big metros. Nice pre-war office buildings though.

I know, right?! I wish we had more suburban cookie cutter houses and bland strip malls to showcase. For the size that Detroit has become, we have an amazing collection of architecture from neighborhood stock to places of worship to the downtown Art Deco. For the cities that surround us on the population scale are at par or superior to them. In fact for the 10 cities around us on said scale, DC and San Fran would beat us.

[Bham1982]

Welp, I guess since all cities basically have the same thing we should all just stop visiting them.

Except they don't, which is the whole point.

NYC, LA, Miami, New Orleans, Vegas, Orlando, Honolulu, etc. are rather unique, which is, in part, why they get tons of tourists, and why Detroit doesn't.

You seriously don't get why someplace like NOLA gets tourists while someplace like Dallas doesn't? Really?

And obviously you've been living under a rock for sometime or would know that Belle Isle has come a long way since the takeover. Urban parks aren't rare, but BI offers beautiful views of the city and waterways and a country-like atmosphere in the middle.

Well that certainly sounds unique. A well maintained park with a country-like atmosphere; never heard of such thing. I'm sure the tourist hordes in Paris and Venice are cancelling their plans and rebooking their flights to Detroit as we speak...

[animatedmartian]

Honestly, I think that the biggest thing against Detroit is pretty much the perception of crime and decay which is pretty hard to get over. I mean, I've heard of people afraid to even cross I-69 let alone travel here for vacation. If Detroit was a typical city without the burnt out neighborhoods, I think there'd be a better stream of visitors. Maybe enough to get 1 million visitors to the DIA. Last I read, the DIA only gets around 400-500,000 annual visitors.

[Bham1982]

IFor the size that Detroit has become, we have an amazing collection of architecture from neighborhood stock to places of worship to the downtown Art Deco.

I would say, on average, Detroit is one of the ugliest cities in the developed world. Most of our major streets are borderline dystopian. I am not getting this claim that people will visit us for the allegedly beautiful architecture.

Where are these arterials and neighborhoods that make Florence and Brugge look like a West Virginia outhouse? I'd love to see them.