The RC3 Board of Directors met with the consultants the County of Chelan retained to oversee a study of the impacts, positive and negative, of tourism in the County. The Board acknowledged the benefits tourism affords for local residents, including a broader range of amenities (restaurants, shops, music, and entertainment) than otherwise might be available. However, it strongly communicated that tourism in certain areas of the County (Chelan, Manson, Leavenworth) had reached the point where the benefits are far outweighed by the detriments posed to quality of life for locals. Among the concerns relayed were traffic congestion, lack of parking, congested streets and sidewalks, and the overuse of natural resources. Another negative board members cited is the effect overtourism has had on housing availability and affordability. Short-term rentals in certain areas of the County (Leavenworth and Manson in particular) have sharply driven up home prices and priced the local workforce out of the local housing market.
Another concern the board shared is the compounding of the already-enormous wildfire risk by the population explosion occasioned by overtourism in certain areas, precisely at the time the fire risk is at its greatest. The threat of a catastrophic wildfire is greatly escalated by the reality that the County is composed of narrow valleys and topography that lends itself almost exclusively to two-lane highways. The prospect of an emergency evacuation from areas like Leavenworth and the North Shore of Lake Chelan during high tourist season is daunting, in part because no clear evacuation plan is in place, but also because the sheer number of seasonal residents coupled with the year-round population makes a successful evacuation from these areas seem implausible to impossible. These concerns are exacerbated because seasonal visitors often display an alarming ignorance of the wildfire risk, regularly igniting illegal fireworks and engaging in other high-risk behaviors.
The strong consensus of the RC3 board was that tourism in the heavily-visited areas of the County has reached (or exceeded) the capacity of local infrastructure—not to mention the goodwill of local residents. Yet the lodging tax the County collects is allocated only to expanding/enhancing tourist attractions and amenities, while no portion is directed to mitigating the harmful effects of tourism. RC3 believes this needs to change and advocated to that end. Likewise, members of the board suggested that a fee should be charged for use of the natural resources that are currently being overused/abused, e.g., the Icicle and Wenatchee Rivers.
RC3 believes that overtourism directly impacts the quality of life for the local population and will continue to work to address this issue.