The city of Carmel shelved a $292,947 tourism marketing funding request after residents raised concerns about traffic congestion and overcrowding tied to visitor growth — a move that has enraged some business owners reliant on tourists.
The City Council unanimously approved a $42 million budget for fiscal year 2026-27 during its June 2 meeting but excluded the near $300,000 marketing allocation.
“Visitors are welcome here, but tourism also creates unwelcome impacts for our residents. Congestion, pollution, noise and trash are daily realities,” councilmember Robert Delves read from a draft argument.
“They’re angry about it it, frankly. They feel like there’s too much tourism, there’s over-tourism, so they see this kind of incongruity between that and the funding for See Monterey,” councilmember Hans Buder added.
See Monterey is a nonprofit tourism and marketing group responsible for promoting cities in the Monterey Peninsula such as Big Sur and Carmel-by-the-Sea.
While city council took out the group’s funding, the council plans to work with the organization and continue discussions ahead of the city’s next official meeting July 7.
“We appreciate the opportunity to continue discussions with the city and community partners … and look forward to identifying the best path forward for Carmel and its tourism economy,” See Monterey told Action News 8 in a statement.
For some residents, the overflow of tourists is necessary for businesses to thrive.
“I’ve been here almost 30 years, and I’ve never stopped hearing that (referring to bad traffic), so that’s always going to be a problem,” a general manager at a Downtown Carmel restaurant told the outlet.
“We need always to be marketing, and to lose that would be huge,” he furthered.
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