I have started games with several races.. I still find tourism to be a necessary financial step to take, and it has improved VERY much since the beta, I just don't care for the adjacency fix. It seems cheap to me. Adjacencies should mean something, now I don't care if a tourism building has adjacencies or not.
(edit) the emporium being the exception, +5% econ adj is worthy, but that is a very difficult building to get first