Big Tourism Frustration

[ArchDan 0]

Okay here is the deal, hopefully someone has figured this out because i'm totally stumped and frustrated to the max. Which has left me thinking something may be broken.. So i'm trying to partially specialize in tourism and gambling. I have a very low crime rate, three police stations maxxed out in strategic areas, one is specifically situated very close to the gambling hall.. Additionally I have tirelessly defeated traffic in my city (everywhere is bright green 99% of every hour. I have done this by including train stations (one situated next to the gambling hall, another next to major tourist attractions), 2 bus stations (both situated near the gambling hall and maxxed out), a bus terminal, a streetcar station AND a municipal airport.. My cultural buildings are the Willis tower, statue of liberty, and an expo center... Also i have a well balanced commercial area beside my gambling hall and surrounding my cultural buildings.. Now despite all this hard work, I have a pathetic amount of tourists, barely enough to generate I would estimate, less then $1000 per hr on average from my cultural buildings (because this fluctuation is erratic and never consistent) and consistently negative from my gambling hall....How is this possible? I am just laughing out loud at this point.. Please someone give me some insight if there is any to be had.. Thanks.

[kgpurrs 107]

You must be doing something wrong.  Couple things to check:

 

1.  Did you place the expo center sign?  That generates 1800 low wealth and 1800 medium wealth tourists.

 

2.  1 Casino needs to have the comedy club and the lounge with one hotel each for medium and low wealth tourists.  This should generate 700 low wealth tourists and 500 medium wealth tourists per day.  This allows your second casino to have a blackjack and two nickles with one low wealth hotel.  This should net ~60-70k revenues a day.  Sci-Fi casino also has a disco club for low wealth and a celeb center for medium wealth.  I would make sure your first two casinos are maxed out by that method first though.  I recommend the casino with comedy club and lounge to be at your highway entrance (for immediate tourist trap for car tourists) and the blackjack and nickles next to the train station.

 

3.  Are your commercial buildings selling out to your population?  It might have nothing to do with tourist generation, but I would make sure that I had two low wealth high density hotels next to the expo center and one medium wealth high density hotel.  The low wealth hotels hold 720 low wealth tourists each, perfect for after expo center events.  The remaining tourists can shack up in a hotel at a casino for steady flow of casino revenues throughout the day, destroy any other hotels you see.

 

4. Make sure when your tourists exit the train station they are walking distance to your bus station and walking distance to your casino and expo center.  Make sure they can not walk to a commercial building before the casino and expo center and make sure the first bus stop is the casino, and then expo center.  There is a green light on the roads next to the train station, this tells you where the tourists are willing to walk without public transportation (streetcars and bus).  Municipal bus can also bring in "tourists" or shoppers from neighbor cities.

 

5.  Turn off Willis Center and Statue of Liberty.  Turn off your airport.  Make sure your casinos and expo center is selling out everyday, then you can attempt to expand your tourism to high wealth.

 

Thumbs up if this was helpful...

[asasa45454 4]

No, he probably isnt doing anything wrong. I have a similar situation. The city gradually built up to ~27k tourists and then plunged to low hundreds. Thats with a Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Sears Tower, 2x Expo Center, 2x Stadium, all signs, upgraded $$$/$$/$/$ casinos, good mass transit, minimal traffic issues, and even less near the tourist area, and lots of souvenirs in commercial shops.

[ArchDan 0]

Thanks for spending the time to reply @kgpurrs but I had the exact same casino set up you described and despite that I was loosing even more money which is why I turned it off in order to first generate more income from one casino... Although the casino is not situated directly on the main avenues it is literally a singe high density building size away so I doubt that would make a drastic difference but I will try that none the less. Additionally my bus station, bus terminal, and one train station are all walking distance from the casino and my expo centre does indeed have a sign on it. Also I think it would be good to note that although my casino isn't full my expo centre always sells out and I have a bus stop AND streetcar stop right in front of the expo centre. What confuses me is the purpose of turning off my tourist attractions considering that is one of the factors necessary to attract tourists. Even tho high wealth tourists are attracted, off my head I believe the amount of other wealth class tourists that can also visit these attractions are equal too or exceed the amount of High wealth tourists that can visit...Regardless I will try that as well.. The big question I have is how will I control whether a hotel will appear on a certain commercial zoning zone or not besides destroying that area until one appears lol... Please fill me in..

[Zpike 79]

For profitable casinos you need to keep the retail spaces away from them so the tourists spend their money in the casino and not the stores.  Put a train station directly across the street and maybe even a bus terminal next door.  Put the expo within walking distance.  Put the low and medium room expansion on the low end casino for the customers to stay in.

[perafilozof 143]

Yes. The key is keeping the tourists away from your commercial buildings.

 

As for the sudden drop in the number of tourists coming to a city I have become 100% sure that it's a server problem. Because the servers control the influx of people from the "game world", and when ever the server and your city don't communicate properly your tourist just don't come in.

[ArchDan 0]

Bus station and train station are right beside the casino..... And there is absolutely no commercial buildings in front beside, or in between the bus and train station and the casino. There is tho a block of commercial behind the casino but there is a land gap between them, because the commercial building are zoned on a completely separate street.. My expo centre is not close to the casinos tho, but I thought each entity would attract there own tourists... This is very ludicrous in design if that isn't the case Imo.

[Districtopia 23]

I agree with all the tips that have been given but again it would be nice if the advisors would actually give you helpful information when you press "guide me."

[g5todd 5]

i have noticed they really dont guide you...you just get missions that are based in that realm from the people in the city

[Zpike 79]

Bus station and train station are right beside the casino..... And there is absolutely no commercial buildings in front beside, or in between the bus and train station and the casino. There is tho a block of commercial behind the casino but there is a land gap between them, because the commercial building are zoned on a completely separate street.. My expo centre is not close to the casinos tho, but I thought each entity would attract there own tourists... This is very ludicrous in design if that isn't the case Imo.

 

 

The Expo Center will bring in lots of tourists to that area during events along with a general boost in tourists if you place the sign.  The idea behind placing the Expo Center across from the casino is so the people that go to the expo center will leave and walk across the street to your casino and spend their money.  It's not mandatory, however I have found that my casino across from the Expo Center is one of my most profitable casinos.

 

Sounds like a logical design to me.

[Trooth 22]

The further into the game you go, the more.glaring the problems with the simulation appear. The game should not have been released in this condition and hopefully thus becomes an example to all.game companies on how not to do beta testing. For touting this game as a mmo type of.game, they beta tested it as a standalone single player game that you only play three hours and that is the end of the game.

[ArchDan 0]

@Zspike, I respectfully disagree... It is logical in strategy yes, I would agree to that but it is not logical in design... In real life tourist attractions will attract there own tourists... That is why it is called a "tourist attraction" lol... But to have to put one tourist attraction that properly attracts tourists (the expo center) to attract tourists to another attraction (the casino) is obsurd...

[TheGoodGoodMan 0]

It is a bug. Tourists stuck in the hotels (not casino rooms but in commercial zone hotels). To fix it go to city specialization pick tourism then click in left down corner on tourism filter (small camera). Now you will see in color only tourists, tourists attractions and commercial zone hotels (blue ones). This hotels should have a bar showing you how many visitors stays in. Now pick bulldozer tool and destroy this hotels. After a moment tourists will start visiting your city again. 

[Bibor_Kiraly 21]

Here's a draft of a layout that 100% works. Sorry for the crude design but didn't have enough time. The number of tourists will fluctuate but not by much.

 

Do NOT place the municipal bus station and highway exit close to tourist buildings. The idea is that the bus station is far away from the entry point (rail station) for sims to move through everything you got first.

Do NOT place the convention centre close to either the tourist entry or exit points. Stuff casinos in-between.

[Grimhood 1]

Here's a draft of a layout that 100% works. Sorry for the crude design but didn't have enough time. The number of tourists will fluctuate but not by much.

Do NOT place the municipal bus station and highway exit close to tourist buildings. The idea is that the bus station is far away from the entry point (rail station) for sims to move through everything you got first.

Do NOT place the convention centre close to either the tourist entry or exit points. Stuff casinos in-between.

Do you also have commercial in your residential area? How do you prevent death by taxi?

[NovaBlazer 10]

One small thing...

I brought my train station rail to both sides of the map.  And it works pretty well.

 

The good news is that the 2.0 patch might help you out.  Not sure I like the idea of recreating all my casinos but, at least they admit that it was fixed.

[Bibor_Kiraly 21]

Do you also have commercial in your residential area? How do you prevent death by taxi?

 

I use mostly parks in the residential areas for happiness. Death by taxi cannot be prevented, but works okay as long as you keep non-tourist road trafic at minimum. That's why tourist cities shouldn't be packed with residents.