Where Do Tourists “Go?”

Public Restroom Paris

Let’s say you’re visiting Key West and are window shopping on upper Duval and suddenly nature calls. Where are you going to be able to use a bathroom without ordering a sandwich at a local restaurant?

The Keys claim to be a tourist destination but neither the county nor the cities provide some of the services that tourists – and local residents – may need.

So what do people do? It’s not at all uncommon to see someone urinating in the mangroves on the side of the Overseas Highway. At the bus stop in Marathon, where the buses for Florida City and for Key West depart, some of the riders do the same in the shrubbery or on the side of the building behind the stop.

Publix supermarkets have bathrooms for their customers as do CVS and Walgreens. Before the visitor center was opened in Florida City many travelers slipped into the bathroom at McDonald’s without buying anything.

However, there doesn’t seem to be any push by either the county or the cities to provide these necessities in the Keys. While Marathon, for example, does have bathrooms at its parks, it has been slow to do the same at what is referred to as Sunset Park near the Old Seven Mile Bridge. Key West has bathrooms on Mallory Square but nowhere else in Old Town.

And yet some tourist destinations do provide appropriate facilities. Recently we visited Paris, which gets 70 million visitors a year, and discovered that kiosks that enclose free bathrooms are scattered around the city. Push a button, the door opens and inside is a clean toilet and sink. An indicator on the entry control shows whether the facility is in use or not or even whether it is being cleaned. The instructions are in three languages and there’s also a recorded message inside instructing people about how to use the system.

We saw the kiosks around major tourist attractions but also in many other areas. The free restrooms (toilettes) have a self-cleaning feature that ensures they don’t end up becoming littered and smelling bad like the port-a-potties that one sees at construction sites or at larger events in the United States.

In fact, the bathroom kiosks in Paris were much nicer and also considerably larger than the bathrooms on our flight home.

Every morning we saw a small vehicle stop at each kiosk and service it. Clearly tourists are important in Paris and the city makes sure that these visitors can access the services they require.

We also saw trash barrels situated at most corners in Paris and large, green recycling bins where visitors can put their empty bottles and cans as well as other recyclables. In Marathon, I counted a total of two trash barrels between Vaca Cut and Sombrero Beach Road. There are only a few recycling receptacles at Sombrero Beach and a couple of those are in inaccessible places. This lack of receptacles makes it tough for visitors and residents who want to be responsible about disposing of their trash.

Perhaps the county should use TDC money to construct restroom facilities up and down the Keys rather than spending funds on oft-repeated events that are making money. Or on very high-priced infrastructure. A couple of the state parks have installed composting toilets and waterless urinals making expensive plumbing unnecessary.

Tourism isn’t just about making money off visitors; it’s also about treating them like guests. In the highly competitive tourism market Key West and the rest of the Keys need to do more than rely upon our unique location to attract tourist dollars. We need to give something back.