from my experience, tourist areas seem to reflect where they get their most people from. For example the beaches of Southwest Florida seem to attract people from the same place that the Panhandle draws from. However nice beaches are expensive and draw the more international the crowd. This is where you get a lot of multicultural people, relatively disadvantaged, even if they are modestly wealthy by most standards, people and people from big cities. The Huffington Post crowd. The more regional and less expensive places tend to draw people from rural and white places where everyone makes about the same amount of money. The Trace Atkins and Fox News crowd.
This could explain in my state why Galveston is Republican leaning, and yet the beaches of South Padre Island are Democratic leaning. You're pretty right about that.
However there is a strong GOP lean on historical tourist spots.
