tourist trap

Definition of tourist trap

: a place that attracts and exploits tourists

Examples of tourist trap in a Sentence

The street market is a tourist trap that mostly sells cheap souvenirs. That hotel is just a tourist trap.

Recent Examples on the Web In another, a Luting reservation is established, but public interest in Luting heritage quickly turns the site into a tourist trap. — Jiayang Fan, The New Yorker, "Hong Kong’s Protest Movement and the Fight for the City’s Soul," 9 Dec. 2019 These touches make craft breweries feel like home, and also attract out-of-towners looking for local flavor and not a tourist trap. — Brian Manzullo, Detroit Free Press, "He spilled beer on her on their second date. Now they run a popular Michigan brewery.," 2 Nov. 2019 Alternatively, there’s the 41,000-tonne USS Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship currently deployed in the U.S. Navy’s Fifth-Fleet area, which takes in such tourist traps as the Strait of Hormuz and the waters off Yemen and the Horn of Africa. — Liam Denning | Bloomberg, Washington Post, "Big Energy Has a Whole Other Climate Change to Worry About," 21 Mar. 2019 Their likeness can be found on a specialty license plate, as stuffed animals in tourist traps, and, inexplicably, in a Jimmy Buffett song about aging. — Tamara Lush, The Seattle Times, "In first 8 months of year, manatee death toll surpasses 2017," 20 Aug. 2018 There’s even a tourist trap called the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters near the trail’s southern end. — Eric Barton, Outside Online, "This Florida Thru-Hike Is Not for the Faint of Heart," 10 July 2019 The modern-day hordes are thankfully kept at bay—the Peloponnese has largely been spared the overdevelopment of Greek tourist traps such as Mykonos and Santorini. — Thomas Linkel, National Geographic, "How to get away from it all in Greece," 18 July 2019 Too young to know about traffic, tourist traps and six-level parking garages. — Los Angeles Times, "Four Hours: Exploring the newly relocated kids’ museum, now in Santa Monica," 9 Aug. 2019 There’s a fine line between must-see attraction and overrated tourist trap. — Gabrielle Olya, USA TODAY, "20 American tourist traps that are actually worth your time and money," 12 July 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'tourist trap.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Last Updated

12 Dec 2019

Cite this Entry

“Tourist trap.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tourist%20trap. Accessed 18 January 2020.

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