I don’t think we even NEED tourism to be our first goal. My Goal is to excite the existing residents about living here. Then after we win them over, we can focus on getting people from the suburbs and around the state, and then we can focus on out of state tourism.
Have you ever been somewhere on vacation that everyone who lives there thinks is a lame place to be? I have, it’s kind of weird, and its much more difficult to be a tourist. So if we motivate the residents about living here, get people from other towns to travel here and enjoy Raleigh, Truly leverage our 2Mil Population, then implement out of state tourism, we could have a really good environment for tourists.
I wouldn’t say that Raleigh/surrounding residents AREN’T excited about living here - truth be told, I’ve never been to any other city where so many damn people wear their own city’s name on a t-shirt. But on that topic- look into “We Claim Raleigh” - a new movement led by a team of politically activated creatives aimed at doing just what you’re suggesting - getting younger professionals/creatives more excited about growing with our city and getting more involved in its growth. Key word “more” - it’s not that people aren’t excited about living here, it’s just that we need em MORE excited, MORE involved, MORE active. I also (personally) think we need more weird stuff here. When I’m a tourist, I like visiting weird places. Raleigh seems to be growing in a more stale/generic direction and I want to change that.
I really have to disagree, Boston is much more popular among its residents, and all of New England than Raleigh is.
I agree with this, we have the foundations for some great things. The building blocks of a city like Boston are here, we just need to get people excited about them in Raleigh own special way. I really want Raleigh to be unique, but to also utilize the cookie cutter things it has well.
I agree with this, More public art installations, more weird unique stuff.
Looks like Raleigh is getting recognized by tourists though. I was just curious and looked up Raleigh on youtube and came up with this recent tourism video of Raleigh (with a little bit of CH/Dur-Ham) by a normal vlogger:
They went to all the tourist spots including Transfer Co. Food Hall, lol.
I’m curious what about Raleigh you think makes it a compelling tourist destination compared to other cities. What needs to be marketed? What do we offer for visitors that they can’t get more/better of somewhere else?
I feel like I’ve traveled the US a decent amount and I’d say we ARE excited about living here. I know several people who grew up here and still live here because it’s just an awesome place to live. Hell, people in the burbs that I know are even pumped about it. It was weird coming to a city where many residents had shirts with their own city on it, which I previously thought were tourist shirts. I don’t think we NEED tourism but that’s a nice way to get more money for more cool shit.
Edit: just saw your other response. You’re always comparing Raleigh to Boston. I don’t disagree with you that Boston has a lot of pride, but it doesn’t mean we don’t either and I think our pride is still exceptional compared to most other cities.
This is about Marketing Raleigh, so please don’t flag this post.
People compare things because it’s what they know, Saying that “Raleigh has the most pride out of any other city I’ve been to” is pretty ignorant statement. Newyorkers have a lot of pride too, and there are more of them than us, so I could also reason that quantitively they have more pride than we ever will.
I never said that we were not excited and had pride in Raleigh. Maybe it’s because I live on the east side and everyone always dumps on Raleigh here, Seriously most people I meet here do.
I compare Raleigh to Boston because Boston is what I know. Boston is built and is not doing anything. So it’s easy to share examples of because they have achieved success. Boston is also extremely unique, we really need to leverage our uniqueness, while still maintaining some aspects of Large Cities that Boston does. Boston does this well.
If we focus on cities that we could be like: Charlotte, Atlanta, etc we will eventually adapt traits like them. This is what happened in Charlotte IMHO, which is turning out to be a lot like Atlanta or other banking cities. But if we take aspects from cities we could never be like: Boston, DC, NYC, then we will have good things that we know will work, mixed with our own creativity and uniqueness.
Some people get offended when I or others Compare Raleigh to other cities, Especially if it happens often and they have nothing to say in response, or if they do not understand the comment. That’s because they are shallow minded. I get offended when people compare Raleigh to Asheville or Wilmington because Those places are not even the same basic ideology of Raleigh. But that is because I am shallow minded. There will be things that even my old home town, which I strongly dislike, will probably do better than Raleigh. So open-mindedness is a must. I could easily start comparing Raleigh to Portland OR if it doesn’t cause irritation.
Ooh Portland has Portlandia. We need a show that highlights quirky Raleigh. The last show we had like that was when Barney would go on weekend trips from Mayberry and head into the big city. Time for an update. Get the Sedaris siblings involved.
I never hear about Portland, and all of my family and a lot of my friends lives there and talk about how it’s underrated, Heck it was even in Animés song. But I don’t read anything but TBJ so maybe I’m not the best Gauge.
It’s definitely more loooongtime residents that talk down on Raleigh - they’ve seen it grow, but it’s been very slow. I think it’s been growing faster more over the last couple years, so newer residents move here and are flustered by growth. But I have plenty of friends that have lived here their whole life that want OUT. So I get that.
I would agree that Portland, OR is not underrated and has quite a marquee to it! Long known as a hip enclave for folks from CA (and nationwide). When I travel overseas people know Portland, Austin but some have never heard about Raleigh in their life.Or if you want another testament check the median home prices in Portland
Well Wilmington had One Tree Hill but they fail to mention Wilmington. Just make a compelling Gen Z One Tree Hill clone based in Raleigh—or on the show it would be called Oak Tree Hill. xD
To me if a city is the sort of place that hipsters from Brooklyn or San Fran tend to go for a long weekend, and then winds up on the top of their list to relocate and open up their own take on some trendy fusion restaurant concept when they get tired of the crazy pace of life in a superstar city, it is not underrated. My hometown of Asheville is therefore definitely not underrated. Portland, Raleigh, Durham, Nashville, Charlotte, Austin… all of these places may have been underrated a generation ago, but are punching about their weight by now.
In the southeast, I find Greenville and Columbia SC, Knoxville and Chattanooga, TN, and perhaps Winston-Salem NC underrated. I have a suspicion Birmingham AL might be the same, never been there though.
-All the free museums, especially the incredible NCMA.
-So many breweries to try (sure lots of cities have breweries, but we certainly have a lot of em)
-Artspace, Lump, VAE, CAM - I would love to see more fringe-y galleries open up (in the vein of Lump and VAE), but we do have a decent art scene outside of NCMA
-On that note; Glas. Nate Shaeffer is a world renowned neon artist, and his workspace/gallery is INCREDIBLE and so unique.
-JC Raulston Arboretum. I took my cousin there when she visited recently and she was floored.
-Decent amount of record stores (Nice Price, Nice Price Jr, Sorry State, Record Krate, Cheshire Cat vendors, Schoolkids)
-Great food options, including some heavy hitters like Ashley Christiansen, Cheetie Kumar, and Scott Crawford
Traffic is the major complaint I hear from longtime residents. And of course empty nest syndrome is a thing. The beaches and mountains that were weekend getaways when raising kids seem like nice places for new homes when you retire. But I don’t come across too many people that have to get out of dodge.
In seriousness though, I don’t disagree, I feel it’s underrated not because we lack things to do but because we lack advertising. We need to leverage what we have via advertising and add new stuff.
Where I live is full of people who are all like “The traffic here sucks, there’s nothing to do MEH” and I’m like
me: “Have you guys been to the Morgan street food hall?”
Them: “What’s that?”
me: its this awesome food venue in the warehouse district
them: “what’s the warehouse district?”
me: “its a district of downtown”
them: “say, are they still working on that city plaza thing”
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree all those things are great, but our fine collection of museums is the only one I see with much ability to drive tourism. People could hit the major museums in the big bos-wash cities and then maybe on a later trip want to check out the ones here.
Our breweries, art scene, and food are solid, but would someone really come here instead of somewhere else to experience those? For instance our food scene is gaining a lot of steam but I think most people would rather go to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, DC, Charleston Atlanta, or New Orleans. I just don’t think the food scene here is enough to actually draw people in. Once they are here they are probably pleasantly surprised.
Yes even for all the press Asheville gets is still underrated. Downtown especially, at last half the buildings in DT Asheville would but the best that DT Raleigh has to offer to same in design and historical value. Covered up in great restaurants, pubs and local shops. Not to mention a number of knock-your-sock off places around not far from central city, easy bike ride if no not mind big hills.
Not to put Raleigh down, just good in different ways.
