Welcome to Tourgasm     Intro and Useful Information   I am going to create this guide and update it from time to time.  The first part of this guide is going to be the initial starting of your tourist city.   I specifically chose this screenshot to explain how tourism works and to address the numerous threads and questions people have on tourism.    Approval Rating Commercial Approval Rating   There are two important ratings, attraction rating (culture buildings, gambling buildings, parks, pollution) and approval rating.  Attraction rating is your cap on tourists, and Approval rating is how close to the cap tourists will appear and stay in your city.    Public Transportation   Bus Station Train Station (Missing from Picture with Casino)   Place your Bus Station next to the Expo Center, but do not put any bus stops in your city.  Tourists will spawn from the Bus Station and use Taxi's for Transportation.  Bus Stops only cause traffic in your city, and lower your approval rating because bus are always late to their stops.  Place your Train Station next to your Casino and adjacent to your expo center.   Guide   Selecting your City:  Only two important things to keep in mind when selecting your city, you must have rail and you must have ferry available in your city.  That's it.   Building your City:  Place a Water Tower and Wind Power Plant, then build a 2 to 1 ratio of Residential to Commercial.  Place your town hall.  Avoid medium wealth residential.  Keep your services, schools, etc. separated so they don't spawn medium wealth land value.  Basic principle is KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid), Medium wealth this early only complicates everything and you really don't want to focus on any of that.  Half of your map (or more) should be dirt or low density R and C.  Tax rate at 9%.  Your goal is to get to 5000 population as quick as possible to get utilities.  Once you get utilities get a sewage treatment plant.  Continue getting more utilities and city services as you grow your R and C.  Make sure your approval is in the green 80-90% and do your best to keep it there.  Once you have all city services in place you are ready to grow to medium density roads.   Town Hall Upgrades: Utilities (5k), Transportation (15k), Safety (30k), Tourism (75k).  (Education and Finance are for other cities in the region)   Education: One Grade School with enough bus stops to get 150 students on low density roads.  At half of your city at medium density, upgrade this to two more classrooms.  At your entire city at medium density, upgrade to full class rooms and get a community college.  (If you are playing multiplayer or when you decide to create your second city in your private region, department of education will allow you to get a high school and gymnasium which improves your attraction rating).   Tourism Specialization   Place your Expo Center and Bus Station next to each other and as close as possible to the highway entrance and the railroad at the same time.  Once you get a number of hotels to spawn, you can expand your revenues to Gambling Specialization.  The Gambling is optional but brings in nice additional hourly revenues at the cost of crime.  But with proper education and police (10 squad cars) you can keep your approval rating at 95%+ no problem.  Lower your taxes for the low wealth to 7%.   It's really that simple, with over 3000 tourists (that continue to come everyday), and a nice revenue stream going, the sky is the limit.  Just make sure you follow the basics in this guide, each tourism wealth level follows the same basics.   Tourist Wealth Level Expansion     These screenshots were taken after placing my Globe Theater and Harbor, in between the photos the Harbor dropped off 1000 tourists.  The harbor will continue to drop off 1000 tourists every 4-6 hours depending on your attraction rating and approval rating.   By this time you should be around 50-60k population.  You should have a police precinct (if you have Casino revenues), a Hospital (place in middle of city), and a large fire station (also place in middle of city).  For police precinct I suggest placing one at one of end of town, and a police station at the other end of town in your high wealth area.  For the fire station I build an airport and get 1 helicopter pad.  Then I delete the airport (my city is not ready for an airport yet, I need a much higher attraction rating with department of tourism).  Helicopter fire protection and two fire trucks keep me at 0 burned down buildings and 0 abandoned buildings.  I begin my wealth expansion with the Mayors mansion where I want my high wealth area to be.  I continue to upgrade to the highest level while placing high wealth parks.  This will spill over into your low wealth areas and they will become medium wealth areas.  Your goal is to get high density medium wealth and high density high wealth.  Medium density Medium wealth will spill over into your medium density low wealth.   Medium and High wealth hotels will begin to spawn, and your population will increase to 75,000 and you can get your final town hall upgrade: Department of Tourism.  With your wealth level expansion of your city, you are now ready for wealth level expansion of your tourism!  Place a medium wealth tourist park and convert a portion of your low wealth into medium wealth.  Your goal is to get to 75,000, but your goal is not to stay at 75,000 population.  Once you have your Department of Tourism you are ready to drop your population back to 50,000 via wealth conversion.   You are now ready to expand your tourism attraction rating and supplement revenues with a sleek casino!