tourist trap

tourist trap

A location or attraction that is designed to lure visiting tourists in to spend a lot of money, but which is often substandard compared to the cost of visiting or participating. A: "I was thinking we could go see the World's Largest Ball of Twine today!" B: "Oh, Tom, that's just a silly tourist trap. There are much better ways to spend a Saturday than that while you're in town." There are some fun things to do there, for sure. But for how much they charge you just to get into the park these, it's really turned into a big tourist trap.
See also: trap
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

tourist trap

n. a place set up to lure tourists in to spend money. (Can be a shop, a town, or a whole country.) It looked like a tourist trap, so we didn’t even stop the car.
See also: trap
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • honey trap
  • like a moth to the flame
  • have a 20 on (someone)
  • get a 20 on (someone)
  • any old place
  • any old thing, time, place, etc.
  • a/(one's) 20
  • a hop, skip, and a jump
  • hop, skip, and (a) jump
  • skip
References in periodicals archive
Tourist Trap is, in fact, as much in the tradition ofDad's Army as it is in the Office.
Last month, we went to Oslob, the latest Philippine tourist trap, to see the whale sharks.
"The central library is more of a tourist trap than a community facility," Mr Jaddoo said.
A COVENTRY charity will carry out street walks once a week with the aim of helping homeless people in tourist trap Stratford.
"We're happy with our own company - but we like to see the real world where ordinary people live, not a purpose-built tourist trap.
"No, Vegas is only a tourist trap. There is no gay culture here.
Tony d'Avanzo has solved a problem at his Rolls Royce bed and breakfast in the Cotswold tourist trap of Bourton-on-the-Water--and next door's dog is as sick as the proverbial parrot!
Ogden, Charles TOURIST TRAP (Edgar and Ellen Series, #2).
The site features "success story" occupations like camel husbandry, flower masseuse, clown "escorts," and silver-painted tourist trap standing still on a box performers.
Under the smiling, sugarcoated tourist trap facade lies a complicated web of deceit, greed and murder.
Although Cuba was once a generous mixture of Europeans, West Africans and Chinese, today there remain only 300 pure Chinese and Chinatown has become a tourist trap. While the Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago segments celebrate the successes of their restaurant owners, the Cuban segment is a touching epitaph for a ghost community.
The name of which horse running today could also be: (a) a tourist trap in London (b) a hirsute fruit (c) a biography of Led Zeppelin (d) a less-than-warm spice (e) a sorcerous bit on the side?
So far, the top-down planning model has produced what is at best a tourist trap, at worst an outright failure.
John Harris is quoted as saying that the absence of opossums is a "curious exception" to the list of current mammals of the Los Angeles Basin preserved in the La Brea tar pits ("L.A.'s Oldest Tourist Trap," SN: 1/24/04, p.
A cardboard cutout of actress Angelina Jolie in her `Tomb Raider' costume appears to stand guard over the quiet town of Drain on Monday afternoon from the window of Betty's Tourist Trap store on First Street.