| | |  Editorials | Opinions 
Establishments that Do Not Respect Local Residents
 Mark de Leon - PVNN
March 20, 2010
As some Vallarta residents may know there are many restaurants and bars that do not value the local residents return visits. In fact many tourists and residents have experienced "unpublished policies" as well as blatant overcharges in bars and restaurants. This compounded by that fact that some restaurants expect that local residents will tip the same as tourists, even when greeted with lousy service and pricing that differs from that published on the menu.
Many of those of us that live here may understand the economics of our lives and that we can not spend daily as if we were tourists taking that once a year vacation. A tourist is less likely to call attention to a pricing issue, because they already know they will spend while here, and they will probably still tip anyway.
I think it is past the time when Vallarta residents start emphasizing to those that they do business with that the local customer may represent a greater value than those of the tourists that visit Vallarta a few times in a lifetime. In fact, counting how much money I spent in one establishment in the last two months, where I later had a negative experience over pricing, what I have paid in that two months exceeds the amount of money spent by one tourist who came for dinner and drinks. During the course of that bad experience, I heard the waiter talking to the cashier about my "race" which is independent of any pricing issue.
Yes we do live in a tourist area, and we live in an area which is full of a dual pricing standard. Sometimes we must ask ourselves however that if this were "back home" would the same disputes arise after having been seen in the same establishment again and again?
Furthermore when my friends and acquaintances come to Vallarta, I will not recommend those establishments to them.
They can keep the disputed difference, and I am not going back unless I see some change and the much deserved apologies, and neither should you. There is strength in numbers, and I think that local resodents may need to start demanding some respect by establishments that seem to only want to aim to serve tourists. |
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