It’s easy to mistake Lake Geneva as the Land of Lincoln based on the overwhelming number of Illinois license plates lining the streets.
Here in this city near the Illinois border, where the summers swell with tourists from Chicagoland, the love-hate relationship with Wisconsin’s southern neighbor is strong. Like them or loathe them, Lake Geneva needs them.
“It’s so funny how the people are so divided,” Lake Geneva Mayor Todd Krause said. “If you take away the lake, essentially, we’re no different than any other small town Midwestern city, many of which are struggling financially. So personally, I’ve always embraced the tourists.”
Many other Lake Geneva locals prefer to gripe. They say Illinois tourists don’t know how to drive, how to park, how to back their boat into the lake. They take over the town, sometimes with a condescending or patronizing attitude. They’re always in a hurry. They lack common courtesy.
FIB is the most well-known nickname for our neighbors. There are several variations; Krause offered the PG-13 version: “fartin’ Illinois buggers.”
Krause admits he sometimes turns to tourists for comedic relief.
“I’m gonna go sit on my front porch later today and I will watch people parallel park for a good hour or two,” he said. “It’s absolutely hysterical.”
The tension with tourists began in the late 1800s when a new railway gave wealthy Chicago natives a direct route to Geneva Lake, where they built massive lake homes. The destination’s popularity endured even after the trains ended in 1975. Some of the area’s most recognizable landmarks — the Riviera fountain and the Black Point estate — came from Chicagoans.
Today, thousands of flatlanders journey north. They pay $10 per person to bask at the city beach. They pay $4 per hour to park downtown on the weekends.
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Together, Krause said, parking and beach ticket revenue fund a fourth of the city’s $16 million annual budget.
“People that don’t like tourists, they don’t understand the amount of money they feed to our economy,” he said.
Illinois residents make up largest share of Wisconsin visitors
Illinois is the No. 1 out-of-state market for visiting Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin tourism department. Illinoisians accounted for 18% of overnight trips in Wisconsin and 22% of day trips in 2022.
Travel Wisconsin develops ads that “speak directly” to Illinois, encouraging them to “Come on up,” department spokesperson Logan Wroge said. About 72% of Illinois residents surveyed by Longwoods International in 2022 recalled a Travel Wisconsin ad, the highest awareness level of all survey respondents.
Travel Wisconsin said top destinations include Milwaukee, Wisconsin Dells, Madison, Baraboo and Lake Geneva.
Door County is another popular place for Illinoisians to venture. About a third of the peninsula’s visitors come from Illinois, said Jon Jarosh, a spokesperson for Destination Door County. They bring benefits sometimes lost in the stereotypes.
Those who own second homes there pay property taxes that help fund local schools, Jarosh said. Some part-time residents volunteer at summer festivals and fairs. And it’s hard to image an arts community the size of Door County’s existing in other places with just 30,000 year-round residents.
Jarosh concedes the tourists brings some pain points, too. Residents learn when not to go grocery shopping and what routes to take depending on the time of year. They make sacrifices to live full-time in a place others consider lucky to spend a couple days.
“As locals, you learn to live with it,” he said. “Anyone would grumble about it, but that’s human nature.”
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