October 28, 2024
From the President:
Last week we forwarded a survey to DNA members issued by Visit Savannah that seeks residents' perceptions of tourism in Chatham County. If you have not seen it, the link is provided below. It’s unclear how the information will be used or provided back to the community.
None of the neighborhood groups—DNA, Victorian Neighborhood Association nor the Thomas Square Neighborhood Association — were made aware of the survey before it was published on Facebook. Visit Savannah never reached out to any of us seeking our assistance in gathering resident input. However each of our organizations felt it was important to actually have residents most affected by tourists complete the survey.
I encourage you to take the survey and provide your assessment of tourism issues in our community.
The survey can be found at: https://survey-d.yoursurveynow.com/survey/selfserve/53b/24081177
Update on Tourism
As it relates to our discussions with the city on tourism matters, we are still waiting for city officials to develop final recommendations to address our concerns.
The Walking Tour Task Force, created by the Tourism Advisory Committee (TAC), is studying recommendations from the city as to tour size and nightly end times. The DNA Board is adamant that all tours end at 9 pm daily south of Bay Street. There is no reason to have tours operating until midnight in residential areas. Additionally, we are pushing for walking tours to be limited to 15 people per tour. So far, the city has not agreed with our recommendations. We will continue to work to ensure that changes acceptable to residents are implemented.
In addition, the city has yet to address our concern about the total number of tours inundating our community. Currently, the city sets no limits on the number of tours per company. The end result is that the volume is too high, and it greatly affects our quality of life.
I would like to emphasize again that it is not our intent to put any tour companies out of business. We are only looking to better balance the quality of life of residents and tourism businesses. As I am writing this message, Joyce and I are in Spain touring the north country. We have seen many signs stating “Tourists go Home.”
You can read in the link below how Spanish residents are protesting "over tourism" in their communities.
We do not want to take this kind of action in our community. Yet.
David McDonald
President
Downtown Neighborhood Association Savannah, GA Inc.