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Key
West gets 'ugly' rating
BY TIMOTHY O'HARA
keysnews.com
KEY WEST — Key
West is third from the last in a survey of 115 international travel
destinations ranked in next month's National Geographic Traveler
magazine and earned a spot in the publication's "Getting Ugly" category.
The
southernmost city trailed locations that have a history of terrorist
acts like Bethlehem, Israel/Palestine and Giza, Egypt, which were also
lumped into the Getting Ugly category. The Everglades, Outer Banks of
North Carolina and the Great Smoky Mountains also hit the Getting Ugly
list.
"The National
Geographic Traveler reader is the type of tourist we want," Key West
Mayor Jimmy Weekley said Thursday. "Tourism is our economy. People are
going to pick this up and read this and it's going to have an impact on
whether they want to come here. I want this to be a place that people
want to come to."
Several groups
and individuals around town have talked about putting the reins on
tourism, while others have refuted the need for official action. The
magazine's survey emphasized sustainable tourism, a stewardship that
preserves the sense of place.
"Loved to
death? Or exploited to death?" the article starts out. "Both could apply
to low-scoring victims of crowding, poor planning and greed. Still,
there's hope."
Key West
received 43 out of a possible 100 points, coming in behind St. Thomas,
Virgin Islands, which earned 45 points, according to magazine
spokeswoman Heather Wyatt.
Norwegian
fjords earned the highest score with 82 points, followed by Cape Breton
Island, Canada; South Island, New Zealand; and Torres del Paine in
Chile, all with 78 points.
Key West was
criticized for failure to promote sustainable tourism. The city was
given a "bad rating" on tourism management and on outlook for the
future, and a "warning" in aesthetics, according to the survey in the
March 2004 edition of the Traveler. The article did credit the town with
"an eco-friendly conch farm and plenty of back-street charm."
The Everglades
did not do much better, earning 54 points and "bad rating" for
environmental conditions and "warning" on outlook.
The magazine
listed travel destinations in three categories, "The Good," "Not so
Good" and "Getting Ugly." The magazine will hit newsstands around the
world March 2.
The ranking
comes as the mayor's Ad-Hoc Planning Task Force, which spent 40 days
researching the state of tourism on the island and its impacts on
residents, submitted recommendations to the city commission that
included the need for a comprehensive resident/visitor plan.
National
Geographic convened a panel of 200 experts in the fields of ecology,
sustainable tourism, geography, urban and regional planning, travel
writing and photography, historic preservation, cultural anthropology
and archeology.
"All well
traveled enough to have a good basis for comparing destinations against
each other," the magazine states.
The survey was
conducted with the help of Leeds Metropolitan University in England.
Experts were asked to evaluate only those places with which they were
familiar. They based their rankings on six criteria: environmental and
ecological quality; social and cultural integrity; condition of any
historic buildings and archeological sites; aesthetics appeal; quality
of tourism management and the outlook for the future.
Mayor Weekley
and others believe the city should have been given more credit for
maintaining the social and cultural integrity of the town and the
conditions of historic structures. In January, first lady Laura Bush
officially commended the city's historic preservation efforts through
her Preserve America program.
Some of the
criticisms mentioned already are being addressed by the city and county,
like the city creating a tourism management plan, said Harold Wheeler,
director of the county's Tourist Development Council. Wheeler added that
the city and county have been praised as tourist destinations in several
national magazines and newspapers.
He cited a
recent USA Today Weekend Magazine article that listed the Keys as one of
the top 10 driving destinations.
"This is one
publication's perception," Wheeler said.
Wheeler agrees
that that the city and county have to manage tourism and make sure it
thrives in the future. Part of that could mean taking a hard look at the
number of cruise ships that come into Key West at one time, he said. On
some days, there are four cruise ships in port, bringing as many as
5,000 people into historic Old Town at one time.
"There have
been issues raised about overcrowding in that industry," Wheeler said.
"They are known to have environmental impacts. We promote more
land-based tourism and longer stays."
Some local
environmental and resident groups have pushed for regulations on cruise
ships and have recommended limiting the number of cruise ships coming to
town.
The
resident-based group Last Stand challenged the Navy's transfer of the
Outer Mole Pier to the city and the pier's use as a cruise ship
terminal. As part of a settlement, the city must conduct a cruise ship
quality of life study, which will look at the environmental, cultural
and economic impacts of cruise ships coming to Key West. The city
currently is choosing firms to do the study.
"How many
wake-up calls do we need?" Last Stand board member Elliot Baron said of
National Geographic's survey. "We have had wake-up calls for the last
six years and we've been hitting the snooze bar."
tohara@keysnews.com |
