Fueling ecological neglect in a manufactured tourist city: planning,disaster mapping,and environmental art in Cancun,Mexico

Abstract

This article explores how tourism urban governance fuels patterns of ecological neglect. It turns a critical eye on Cancun, a leading Caribbean beach tourist destination and battered epicenter of anthropogenic climate change. First, the article contextualizes Cancun’s design and construction as a state development project and manufactured tourist city. It describes the city’s socio-spatial segregation and highlights the role of hurricanes in processes of beach enclosure. Second, it explores a series of risk maps elaborated as responses to international demands on coastal disaster mitigation and beach erosion. I show how local authorities, academics, and the Mexican state are bound to disregard risk maps to further enclose the Caribbean beach and keep the city productive for tourism. Finally, I look at the adoption of anthropogenic narratives on climate change as tourist attractions in Cancun’s Underwater Museum of Art, a unique coalition between conservation, art and tour-operators in the city. I show that turning sea level rise and ocean acidification into tourist spectacles through copyrighted art, this attraction depoliticizes tourism’s responsibility in patterns of environmental degradation. The article serves to reflect on the tacit paradoxes that plague efforts to imagine alternative environmental politics and sustainable tourism urbanisms outside neoliberal trends.     

Design of a curriculum for destination studies

Since vocational tourism courses started at Sydney Technical College in 1973, there have been problems in teaching about tourist destinations. Historical analysis of the subject's development indicates that problems stem largely from an absence of tourism theory. Throughout this subject's development, there have been four major influences: the vocational needs of tourism students; the definition of tourism systems; the adoption of a primary orientation towards the study of the causes of tourism; and developmental work on the nature of tourist attractions. The current curriculum is described and it is suggested that due to these influences it overcomes many former problems with its integrated inter-disciplinary approach employing tourism theory as the core discipline.     

U.S. tourism in Mexico: An empirical analysis

This study estimated demand functions for tourism by U.S. residents in Mexico border areas, the Mexican interior, and overseas. There was no evidence that U.S. tourists substitute Mexico for more distant destinations as transportation costs rise. Border tourism is income elastic when the share of U.S. income of the border states is held fixed. Tourism in the Mexican interior is also income elastic. Tourism along the border is price elastic, while tourism in the interior is elastic with respect to U.S. and overseas prices but inelastic with respect to Mexican prices. The rise in the share of the Mexican interior in U.S. overseas tourism is not related to price factors. Recent devaluations of the Mexican peso are unlikely to provide benefits to the Mexican tourism industry.     

Rethinking the sociology of tourism

Two principal general approaches to tourism are criticized. It is argued against the tendency to over generalize, to propose universal models and to conceive of the dynamics of tourism as a unilinear process. Instead, a multiplicity of types, different typologies and a multilinear approach to the dynamics of tourism should be favored. It is further argued that conceptual schemes should be further elaborated, illustrating the argument by an elaboration of MacCannell's fundamental concepts. The article emphasizes the need for some basic problems in tourism research to be reformulated; it proposes a strategy for research which, while preserving theoretical pluralism and eclecticism, will safeguard continuity and the ability to generalize by developing a common research style for the sociology of tourism.     

Policy choices in South Asian tourism development

Government tourism initiatives in developing countries have been applauded by tourism scholars as a means of assisting a private sector that has insufficient resources and assuring public control of the industry's future. This article reviews the tourism development experience of seven South Asian countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldive Republic) on five policy options: public versus private tourism development; domestic versus international tourism; class versus mass tourism; centralization versus decentralization; and integrated versus enclave tourism. All of the governments in the region have been involved in tourism development to some degree, but they have shown considerable variation in their responses to these policy choices. Which choices are made by a specific country, it is suggested, will depend as much on political and cultural considerations as upon economic factors.     

The rise and fall of an aristocratic tourist culture: Nice: 1763–1936

The character of winter society in Nice during the period of 1763–1936 is traced in cultural developmental terms. This society, which originally was comprised of a small homogeneous group of (mostly) sick upper class Englishmen, gradually evolved to a large international group of wealthy (mostly) healthy winter visitors. The character of this later society appears to have conformed to Cohen's model for expatriate communities in which various groups of foreign nationals band together into an international group of expatriates linked with upper status residents. The evolutionary trend from the simple to the complex is seen to be the result of (mostly outside) entrepreneurial acativity directed at an expanding market. A continuation of such activity appears to have led to the mass tourism in present-day Nice.     

Ethnic tourism,the state,and cultural change in Southeast Asia

International tourism in Southeast Asia increasingly involves a restructuring of the relationship between the state and local cultures. A typology identifies the roles that culture and ethnicity play in Southeast Asian tourism. Tourism involves the state in new relationships with local cultures—as planner of tourist development, as marketer of cultural meanings, as arbiter of cultural practices displayed to tourists, and as an arena for new forms of politics. The state's role is contradictory and complex, as tourism leads to increased state intervention in local cultures and, at the same time, provides cultural groups with new means of pressing claims against the state.     

Never on Sunday? Mexican tourists at the beach

This paper examines contemporary middle class Mexican recreational tourism through a micro-ethnographic study of tourist behavior at a small beach resort in the state of Chiapas. Majority behavior represents the inversion of aspects of normal behavior, particularly in the deregulation of meal-times, night and day activities, and the rules for play. It is hypothesized that the particular, and comparatively excessive, behaviors described may stem from both the historically antecendant Spanish and Indian cultures, with their baroque tendencies, and from the recent liberation of the new middle classes from the “Victorian-like” rules of daily behavior. Behavior at the beach resorts resembles earlier types of vacation in the U.S.A. and this suggests there may be an evolution of tourist behaviors characteristic of the historical situation of the national home cultures of the tourists.     

Anthropology and tourism: A science-industry evaluation

The anthropological contribution to touristic study derives from this discipline's holistic perception of human culture and its comparative methodology. Renewed use of the “national character” approach, applying traditional field methods to industrial societies, would serve to identify elements stimulating tourism in the donor area and the needs within the recipient region. A tourist region is defined as a marketable destination with the surrounding support zones to supply requisite visitor services. The relationship between tourism and regional development needs to be assessed in terms of the economy theory of multiplier effect, as money, goods, services and people flow between the regional core and its support zones. Models illustrate internal development as well as donor-recipient relations. Science and industry share common goals in development and management of tourism, noted by efforts to educate the decision-makers as well as the tourist.     

The perceived impact of tourism by residents a case study in Santa Marta,Colombia

Studies of the local population's perception of tourism impact are useful in setting up programs to minimize friction between tourists and residents, and in formulating plans to gain resident support of tourist ventures. This study identifies the positive and negative aspects of tourism as perceived by the Santa Marta residents, and the influence of selected variables on resident response. It is hypothesized that the perception of tourist impact varies with the distance a person lives from the tourist zone and with the resident's socio-economic status. It is found that despite the perception of some serious negative aspects, Santa Marta residents consider the overall impact of tourism to be beneficial. They want their government to offer more economic incentives and eliminate any restrictive measures in order to stimulate tourism in the area. The positive attitudes of the Santa Marta residents toward tourism may be a function of the incipient stage of tourism development in this area.     

The impact of tourism on a dependent island: Gozo,Malta

Tourism for the 22,000 inhabitants of Gozo, Malta's underdeveloped sister island, means just over one hundred foreign residents, several hundred hotel visitors, and an annual stream of several hundred thousand day trippers from Malta. For Gozitans tourism has provided substantial earnings for a few catering and transport entrepreneurs, permanent employment for a few hundreds, and a modest income for some 1,600 women and girls producing handicraft souvenirs at home. However, the tourist connection to Gozo is controlled by Maltese, who obtain a disproportionate share of the industry's earnings. Increasingly Gozitans resent the way Maltese exploit their island, pollute it with picnic rubbish and treat them as backward. They compare their patronizating neighbours to the polite, free spending foreigners by whom they are treated with respect. Foreign appreciation of their rural environment and lifestyle has increased Gozitan self confidence, even as it has exacerbated their traditional resentment of Maltese cultural, social, and economic dominance. On balance, Gozitans from all walks of life regard tourism positively, especially its benefits to their underdeveloped economy.     

China's tourism: policy and practice

China began to acknowledge tourism as a business phenomenon in the early 1950s, but it was not considered as an ‘industry’ until 1978. The tourist boom has brought China new problems. The government have decided that China should develop a route, relating to China's specific needs, for the tourist industry. Such policy has made China's tourism take on a new look.     

An overview of tourism and planning in the Federal Republic of Germany

German tourism research is an integral part of landuse and economic planning. This has led to the development and implementation of site attractivity and economic efficiency measures. Attractivity models incorporating a site's natural and artificial features are used to provide a comparative ranking of present and proposed tourist developments. Both cross-sectional and time studies indicate that the development of the tourist sector is not an efficient method whereby regional socio-economic disparties can be reduced.     

Political implications of Chinese tourism policy

This study is an examination of the political objectives and probable consequences of the decision to open the People's Republic of China to mass tourism. Through personal interviews and other reports, this article traces the organizational and political dimensions of the abrupt reversal of nearly three decades of restricted and selective foreign access. The author found several anomalies: more “market” oriented cost structure than in most non- socialist developing nations; a hierarchy of tourist classes in a supposedly classless society; liberalization in tourism itineraries along with a freezing of contacts between tourist and Chinese. The article concludes that while China has reaped few tangible political benefits and has incurred some new political vulnerability with its new tourism policy, Chinese tourism has avoided many of the social and economic costs associated with tourism development elsewhere.     

Devaluation and US tourism expenditure in Mexico

Studies that investigate the factors affecting US tourism expenditures in Mexico generally regard relative prices in these countries as sensitive determinants. The findings of inelasticity of expenditures of American tourists with respect to prices in the Mexican interior and border in several studies published in the 1980s are debatable. This study evaluates the impact of recent peso devaluations by adjusting 1970–1982 US tourism expenditures by an index that combines the Consumer Price Index in dollars, the CPI in pesos, and the exchange rate. The results here clearly indicate that US expenditures in the interior and on the border are price sensitive and have a strong positive trend reaction to devaluation in both nominal and real terms. Border expenditures clearly exceed interior expenditures and are more sensitive to exchange rate changes than expenditures in interior Mexico.     

Tourism in Taos and Patzcuaro: A comparison of two approaches to regional development

This study examines tourism and regional development in terms of the different institutional structures present in the United States and Mexico. Using the methodology of controlled comparison, the analysis shows that, although Taos and Patzcuaro share many social structural characteristics and have similar tourist sectors, the relatively open institutional structure within New Mexico and the United States contrasts sharply with the relatively closed, “elitist” institutional structure operating in Michoacan and Mexico. As a result, the citizenry of Taos has been possible for the people of Patzcuaro. The different roles of the public and private sectors in Taos and Patzcuaro are particularly significant in this respect and illustrate two quite distinctive approaches, from the national to the regional to the local level, to the problems of tourism and regional development.     

The evolution of tourist arts

Tourist arts with ethnic content are at the nexus of changing tourism, ethnicity and art in the modern world. This paper explores the range of varieties of tourist arts, the dynamics of change between various types of artifacts, and the interaction between tourist arts and notions of ethnic self-perception. The analogy between language and art is pursued to illuminate the nature of the various communication codes embodied in tourist and ethnic arts. The paper concludes by stressing that tourist arts are not an end-point, but one possibility within the fluid relationships between material symbols, outsiders' demand, and the defense and reformulation of ethnicity. It also concludes that the evolution of ethnic awareness, combined with increased education and travel opportunities, is bringing a uniformity of attitudes towards tourism, material heritage, and museums among the middle classes of all nations. Thus minority ethnic symbols have become the manipulated “totems” of touristic identity.     

The effects of scale in tourism projects in developing countries

The paper by Rodenburg (Annals VII:2:177–196) on the effect of scale in tourism development in Bali raises important questions relating to tourism development in Third World countries. One fundamental question is whether large-scale development is inevitable in such countries, or whether there is persuasive evidence to support smaller and craft scale enterprises. This article undertakes a critical review of Rodenburg's analysis and concludes that large scale developments are likely to be inevitable because of external economies of scale and market structures in international tourism, but that the consequences of such developments can be foreseen and therefore mitigated by appropriate pre-project planning.     

Personal perception and community speculation: A British resort in the 19th century

The paper presents a case history of the origin and early development of what later became a major UK seaside resort. Weston-super-Mare. Early developers were faced with considerable environmental difficulties, and by using a variety of contemporary documentary sources the paper considers how the problems were overcome within the context of both developers' and early visitors' perceptions, and of the regional market for tourism in the early nineteenth century. The reaction of the existing local community to development potential is also considered, and more general conclusions are reached on the nature of resort development in the nineteenth century.     

Tourism as ethnic preservation: The Cajuns of Louisiana

This paper addresses the impact of tourism on the preservation of ethnic identity with specific reference to the Louisiana Cajuns. Tourism has helped the Cajuns retain a separate identity by reinforcing the differences between Cajuns and outsiders. Cajuns are increasingly relinquishing their traditional culture in favor of standard U.S. values, but they retain a strong sense of identity and ethnic pride. A growing tourist industry was institutionalized at about the same time as the development of ethnic pride, and the two phenomena have profoundly influenced each other. Cajuns have become tourists in their own culture, joining outsiders in seeking and celebrating their brand of “local color” Cajun culture is now enacted on a “tourist stage” for the benefit of locals and their visitors. The tourist stage is an arena for the expression of ethnic differences, and it helps perpetuate an ethnic boundary that might otherwise disappear due to acculturation. Using the Cajuns as a case study, this paper proposes a model for the process of ethnic preservation through tourism.