Detroit tourist offers ideas on how to market Detroit to tourists

[EastsideAl]

We need Boblo back!

Much as I loved Boblo, other than the well-known giant monster theme parks, amusement parks really aren't much of a tourist attraction anymore for people outside of the local area.

As far as car attractions, the Henry Ford is one of the largest. They have several old car shows a year.

The Henry Ford Museum, etc. is great, but you'd be surprised how many people outside of the area don't know of the place at all, or don't know that it has a great car collection, besides the Greenfield Village attractions. The Woodward Dream Cruise is great too, and seems like an obvious event to anyone from outside of the Detroit area, but it took them a long time and overcoming a lot of objections to start and grow that event. Anyway, it is only a weekend and not really connected to anything larger. The auto factory tours were something that was positively screaming to be restarted [[something visitors to here, particularly from overseas, almost always ask about). Thank goodness The Henry Ford [[silly name) and Ford finally decided to reinstate them.

In any event, the Henry Ford is in Dearborn, and the Dream Cruise takes place out in Oakland County. What surprises and frustrates a lot of visitors to Detroit is that there is no car-related attraction in Detroit itself near the center of the city - or at least easily and quickly reachable by public transportation from downtown.

The Historical Museum has the potential to be at least a part of that attraction, but it effectively hides its considerable charms from all but we locals who know it. It doesn't advertise outside of the local area, isn't in a lot of tourist material about the area, and is chronically underfunded. The T-Plex people on Piquette have similar potential, and similar difficulties.

She seems to be into all of the foodie arty froo froo crapola.

In case you haven't noticed, that's what sells to a lot of tourists. Look at areas like Soho in NYC, the near north side in Chicago, South Beach in Miami, SOMA or the Marina in San Francisco, etc. Detroit barely has any real commercial activity in a lot of it, let alone places or areas like this. But the potential certainly exists.

No mention of Belle Isle, Campus Martius, riverwalk, or even GM's HQ [[other than saying the marriot costs a lot)

She did mention the Riverwalk. Belle Isle is difficult to reach or appreciate from downtown [[due to lack of public transportation, again) and many of its attractions have been lost or severely diminished through short-sighted neglect. Campus Martius is nice enough, but with its lone cafe and little skating rink is really impressive only to locals [[especially those of us who remember the planning atrocities that preceded it). Old City Hall would've been much more impressive, if modernizing planning numbskulls hadn't had it torn down. And since when was the GM Headquarters a tourist attraction?

If she went to Campus Martius, she would have found D:hive, which does have tourist information.

D:hive is cool, but it isn't really aimed at tourists and is not obviously a tourist information place. What she's really talking about is the easy availability of basic information about city attractions at places where a lot of tourists, and even unfamiliar suburbanites, are likely to go. And that is definitely sorely lacking.

Eastern Market on Saturday would be a good place to have a temporary mobile setup for this, as would be the ballparks before/after games, Hart Plaza during festivals, local theaters, the Auto Show and other conventions and shows. And The Riverwalk, the Cultural Center, and perhaps the Motown Museum should have this all the time.

Why fly into Cleveland? If she flew into DTW she would have seen a world class airport [[granted she would have needed to rent a car).

Explained in the article. But you do bring up the unconscionably stupid lack of reasonable public transportation options between Metro Airport and downtown [[or really anywhere). The corrupt folks who run our oh-so-modern airport won't even permit the Super Shuttle type lower-cost group shuttle vans that are available in pretty much every other major city in the country.

I've been to NYC and I've not seen tourist information everywhere.

New York doesn't really need that, now does it? Detroit's attractions are somewhat less known and more well hidden. We need to sell ourselves, not sit around and say foolish things like "well, NYC doesn't do it, why should we?"

95 percent of the folks at Eastern Market go there because that's where grandma took them and her grandma took her there too! While it is a cool place, it is utilitarian as it is needed to feed the City

Typically short-sighted Detroit thinking. The Eastern Market has enormous potential as an attraction. Everyone I've taken there has said that it was one of the best things they did in the city. There just aren't many places like that left, and many of the ones that remain, like the Eastern Market in Washington DC or Pike Place Market in Seattle, have become significant attractions for those cities.