Tourist Paradise

[tropico180]

Does anyone have any tips on how to build a tourist paradise? I want to build an island based on tourism. please reply

[Off_Shore_Banker]

I've begun using the strategy of building one medium ($5000) hotel at the start of my games, followed up with a couple of beach sites. Throughout the game I'll add to those two items. Beach sites, at $25 a person, are so profitable it's almost vulgar! I generally stick to just those two items; hotels and beach sites. I will also add one Off Shore Bank to the tourism mix. I hate upgrading to electricity, so I never build Luxury Hotels, Nightclubs, Casinos and the like. So if you're out for profit, just stick to Medium Hotels, Beach Sites and at least one Off Shore Bank. I usually hear Ricardo muttering the words, "tourist mecca!" at the end of my reign.

[bhar]

That's all excellent advice, but it won't be a paradise for the tourists if all they can do is visit your beach sites and crappy pubs.  For a true tourist paradise, you do need to upgrade to electricity, and have a lot of variety.  It might not be as profitable as Off Shore Banker's ideas, but it will certainly lead to happier tourists.

[suedenim]

Well, I think happier tourists will lead to bigger profits, too!
As far as I can tell, if your tourism rating is sufficiently high, you'll receive as many tourists as you can handle.  My latest experiment, which I think I'm going to keep following as a general rule, is to *only* accept tourists through a First-Class Airport.  Doing this with the control tower and expanded terminal, I was able to keep 3 Luxury Hotels and a handful of bungalows filled to capacity with no trouble  (and all the tourists are the rich types, with no Slobs.)

Given that the supply of willing tourists seems to be huge, I can see little reason to bother with the low-income stuff much.  The only tourist attractions I didn't totally gouge tourists for were the entertainment facilities I wanted Tropicans to also be able to visit.  As a former Pop Singer, I set prices for my Nightclub to allow my middle class workers to hear my greatest hits and get happy (hmm, in retrospect, it probably would've been smart to build two Nightclubs, one being much more expensive.)

[Off_Shore_Banker]

bhar:

I go for volume. In my last game, I kept five medium hotels filled to capacity along with six beach sites. The off shore bank, which was developed late in the game, only contributed around 10% or so to my overall tourist revenue. I was easily cracking $25K a year. Sue's approach involves heavy investments in infrastructure; airport, powerplants, etc. I'll be more than happy to take all the slobs my dock will handle. Hey, they need a break from reality too.

[Dragon2]

If you're willing to exploit one of the game's misfeatures(I forget who pointed this one out) you can make a fortune with cheap hotels.  Build three or four of them.  On a rotating basis, set the rate to $5, wait for the hotel to fill up, then raise the rate to $50.  After a while the slob tourists wise up and move out -- into another of your bait-and-switch hotels.  As long as you remember to check the hotels every few months, you can make a fortune.  I was scandalized in my last game to see that my cheap hotels were much more profitable than the higher-quality ones.

Of course, if Tropico had a Better Business Bureau, you might have to eliminate its chairman.

[Riftwar]

    When first playing Tropico I always started on tourism early (usually year 1). I tried every concept mentioned above plus a couple of others. I was very happy with the 20-30k a year I was making. Then I wised up and focused on industry for the first 3 decades with tourism an afterthought. I now earn 3-5 times more due to industry than tourism. The gift shop epitomizes the tourism industry. Hard to make a decent profit at (IMO).

[bhar]

The monetary benefit of tourism is not necesarrily that you earn more money than industry, but that the income is steady.  With industry, you may earn $225,000 one year and may not earn another cent for five years.  With tourism, the income is a steady 50-25k a year.  

Off Shore Banker's ideas are excellent for a short game when points matter and you don't have that much capital to invest.  But more infrastructure (such as airports, nightclubs, etc.) are a major boom to the area's tourism industry and in the long run, allow more income (even though there is a higher overhead).

Sue-- Happier tourists do not always mean more profits... there is a certain "perfect tourism rating" where the tourists keep coming back, but expenses aren't outrageous (that is, you get the most tourism rating for the money).  (there may be several "perfect tourism ratings", Off Shore Banker may have reached one of the brackets for middle-low income tourists).  I feel that the "perfect tourism rating" for high-income tourists is about 70.

[SlickWilly]

Just a few thoughts on tourism.

I think that tourism may be one the least understood aspects of Tropico, mostly because the almost endless theories are nearly impossible to test with any certainty.  It is not to difficult for me to turn tourism into a profitable industry, but maximizing that profit is something I feel I'm just starting to understand.

Tourism Rating - Each tourist leaves your island with an assessment of your tourist paradise.  This rating has one very important purpose, in my opinion: It generates the amount of demand there is for your finite number of hotel rooms.  The more demand, the more you can charge (or auto-charge).

Tips:
Always put a police station in the heart of your tourism area.
Variety, variety, variety.  Build every possible tourist trap except the souvenier shop (fully discussed elsewhere).
Build entertainment for your citizens on the edge of your main town facing your tourist area (wherever you put it, tourists will find it. You dont want them trotting through your industrial center).
Pick the green thumb trait.
Develop another form of income (besides logging).  You need a large amount of intial capital to build a true tourist paradise.  But keep it away from the yanquis.
Trees, fountains, shrubs.  Keep the tourist area beautiful.

[2ninga]

Perhaps it's because I'm stuck in Minnesota, where dreams of all things Tropico are the only thing that can get me through the winter, but I always tend to build up a tourism industry.  (Perhaps I'm taking this game to seriously.  I'll never actually get to my island, will I?)

Anyway, bhar is right, the true beauty of Tourism is the consitency of the income.  However, nowhere is the old adage more true: it takes pesos to make pesos.  Here are a few thoughts on how I make it work.  Keep in mind I never open cheap hotels or souvenir shops.  They'll just bring down your rating in the long run.

Always make sure you have the overview eye open when getting ready to build.  Place your hotels in the green areas.  Different areas of the island will be green for high income vs. middle income travelers.  As you build up an area of entertainment (pools, spas, nightclubs, etc.) these areas will change colors.  Once you have some entertainment in place, an area that used to be yellow for luxury hotels can turn to green.  The manual says you should have 5 tourist sites near a luxury hotel in order to increase its rating, however, I think that's based on distance, you don't have to have 5 for every hotel.  As a result, you can follow Mexico's example on the Yucatan and devote an entire shoreline to hotels and such.

It's been said elsewhere, but I don't think it can be said enough, beach sites are embarrassingly profitable.  If that uneducated fellow working there had any idea, he'd want a piece of the action.  Scenic overlooks also tend to do quite well.  Even though they cost more, pools are constructed very quickly and make a ton of money.  Set these to upscale dress code and the tourism rating surges.  

If you are truly trying to build a tourist mecca, then you have to have the infrastructure to support it.  Energy, fully upgraded first class airport (there's nothing quite like having a plane land with 17 tourists on board..Cha-ching) and a range of entertainment options.  Like SlickWilly said, it's a good idea to have a police station nearby to keep everyone feeling safe.  Unfortunately, I've never been able to fill up more than one off shore bank, but there are tourists who have that high on their list of sites to see.  Issue the Mardi Gras edict, put out the Tropico commercials on tv, bring in Elvis, and watch the $$$ flow.

I could keep going, cause I just love to make "tourism bloom like a flower," but I'll end with this note.  I often have trouble keeping the hotels full of workers.  Even one empty spot can cost you hundreds.  The more skill your workers have the higher the tourism rating, so the higher the demand.  Hotel, pool, beach site, and scenic overlook workers tend to be my highest paid uneducated workers.  Make sure they have housing and facilities close enough to work that they aren't wandering around the island all the time.  

Good luck with your island.  Make it a place we'd all like to visit

[Coconut Kid]

This thread is not comprehensive nor accurate even for its time. Check out this more up to date one:
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tropico/cafe/index.php?topic=10971.0