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TOURISM IN MESOAMERICA

Robert V. Kemper

Although Mesoamerica has been a destination of foreign travelers for more than five centuries, tourism has become a major enterprise only in the twentieth century. Since the 1960s, tourism has emerged as the ideal solution for the region’s developmental needs. Promoted as the industría sin chimeneas ("industry without smokestacks"), Mesoamerican tourism reflects the myriad attractions of one of the world’s major culture areas (Kemper 1993).

Ethnicity, culture, history, environment, and recreation (Kemper 1979; Smith 1989:4-6) are all important components of Mesoamerica tourism. The arts, crafts, music, costumes, and folklore of the indigenous peoples are major ingredients in touristic packages offered to both foreign and domestic travelers. Religious festivals have been transformed into significant occasions for tourism in the largest urban areas as well as in the smallest villages. The spectacular remains of pre-Columbian civilizations and the heritage of three hundred years of European colonialism combine to provide abundant opportunities for tourists interested in the region’s cultural and historical heritage. Increasingly, the region’s natural biodiversity is becoming a laboratory for ecotourism. For many European and North American tourists, cruising the coasts of Mesoamerica — with occasional stops at tourist venues, golf courses, and archaeological ruins — provides a powerful enticement for visiting the area.

Restrictions on entry into the colonies limited the development of Mesoamerican tourism. In the era of national independence, and with improvements in transportation technology, the number and diversity of travelers to Mesoamerica increased dramatically. These visitors tended to be members of the elite, as were those few Mexicans and Central Americans who traveled abroad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (MacDonald Escobedo 1981).

Openness toward foreign visitors resulted in hundreds of travel accounts being published during the 19th century (Cole 1978). European and U.S. visitors wrote about their experiences with the native peoples and cultures, the splendors of the flora and fauna, the hidden jewels of pre-Columbian civilizations, as well as the inadequacies of basic necessities for travelers and explorers. Among these accounts, those of Alexander von Humboldt, John Lloyd Stephens, Fannie Calderón de la Barca, and Edward B. Tylor were especially influential.

In the 20th century, tourism has ebbed and flowed in the context of changing international relations. During the first decades of this century, touristic endeavors were modeled along European lines. As a consequence, European-style hotels were built in many major cities. After World War II, the region’s political and economic leaders saw clearly the potential of tourism to help their economies. Moreover, large U.S. hotel chains were eager to expand to the fertile lands to the south. The coastal areas of Mexico emerged as ideal destinations for a new generation of middle class travelers.

Although Mexico’s political leaders had espoused tourism as an engine for development since the 1950s, little had been done beyond developing Acapulco. Not until the 1970s was a plan created to redirect Acapulco’s chaotic growth process and to build a series of new, integrated resorts on the Caribbean and Pacific coasts. After the "success" of Cancún, other projects were implemented along the Pacific coast, including Ixtapa, Puerto Escondido, and Huatulco. The Mexican economic crises of the 1980s and the 1990s have continued to make tourism very important as a source of foreign revenues.

Planners have had to face squarely the sensitive issues of dependency and underdevelopment versus national sovereignty and local control. This is not a problem solved once and for all, but rather a moving target at which politicians and bureaucrats take aim continuously in the light of changing internal and external conditions. For instance, beginning with the National Plan of Tourist Development of 1963, the Mexican federal government has laid out more than a half dozen comprehensive national plans to deal with tourism and development. From mere departmental status in the 1960s, tourism has been upgraded to the highest level — a Secretariat — within the federal government. Moreover, tourism has a significant bureaucratic role at the state, municipal, and local levels (Rodríguez Woog 1993).

One of the most significant recent examples of how tourism can rearrange geopolitical positions may be seen in the creation of the what was first called the Ruta Maya ("Maya Route"), but has more recently come to be known as Mundo Maya ("Maya World") This vast project has brought together Mexico (including the five southeastern states of Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, and Yucatán), Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to attract international visitors to the ancient and contemporary splendors of the Maya.

The marketing of ethnic/indigenous peoples and their cultures as tourist commodities may be reaching a high point with the creation of the Mundo Maya/"Maya World" project, but this is not an unusual approach to the ethnic, historical, and cultural dimensions of Mesoamerican Caribbean tourism. In a recent monograph on ethnic tourism in San Cristóbal, Chiapas, Mexico, van den Berghe (1994:147) argues that "places and people attract ethnic tourists to the extent that they are exotic, authentic, and ‘unspoiled.’" He goes on to observe that "a good deal of the success of San Cristóbal is attributable to the fact that the development was not centrally planned, but that it was locally controlled..." (1994:152). If van den Berghe is correct, then the large-scale, centralized, multi-national planning for the Mundo Maya may not generate the kind of positive development envisioned by its promoters.

One of the significant elements in ethnic tourism in nations with large indigenous populations is the linkage between past and present. Even the native peoples themselves take advantage of this connection. When tourists travel to the famous weaving village of Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, and enter into a weaver’s home to eye the textiles, they are likely to be shown a well-worn paperback English-language edition of Design Motifs of Ancient Mexico. The weavers stress that their rugs contain "authentic" designs because they are derived from those in the book — even though the specific design might have originated in a distant region of Mesoamerica.

Indigenous peoples are also interested in what they see as their archaeological heritage. They are reluctant to have national institutes of anthropology and history control the excavation and restoration of sites and they are unwilling to have national or state-level tourism personnel set guidelines for access to the tourists who visit such sites (e.g., Mitla, Oaxaca [Robles García and Corbett 1993]).

The connection between indigenous tourism and the production, distribution, and consumption of folk crafts and folk performances is well documented. Perhaps the most famous case is the Guelaguetza, performed each summer in the city of Oaxaca by indigenous communities throughout the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Dating back hundreds of years, these colorful dances are now performed over several weekends in a specially built amphitheater for foreign and domestic tourists (Royce 1991:59).

Mesoamerica has emerged in recent years as the primary region of environmental tourism in the world, with some countries — especially Costa Rica (Evans-Pritchard 1993, Place 1991), being held up as examples for others to follow in establishing ecotourism as a significant strategy for touristic development in the coming century. The key to "successful" ecotourism appears to be in the degree to which a significant proportion of the economic benefits remain under local control (rather than in the hands of external entrepreneurs) and local environmental conditions are not worsened through touristic "overgrazing."

Tourism in Mesoamerica has tended to emphasize "upscale" travelers rather than those of the working or even middle classes. Even the classic study of "weekendismo" (Nuñez 1963) involved rich residents of Guadalajara, Mexico, who built villas in a traditional community on nearby Lake Chapala where they might pass pleasant weekends and vacations. This type of domestic tourism continues in Mexico and in other countries, although in recent years more urban middle-class travelers have ventured to the countryside to experience their national heritage and environment. Through workers’ unions and governmental employee programs, hundreds of thousands of working-class and middle-class Mexicans travel each year on "social tourism" group tours to enjoy beaches, archaeological sites, colonial monuments, and so forth. Thus, tourism sustains rather than removes traditional social hierarchies within the region’s societies. For instance, in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, affluent (mostly foreign) tourists stay in the new government-sponsored development (Ixtapa)on the Pacific coast, where elegant hotels, fine dining, and well-watered golf courses are their disposal. Meanwhile, working-class and middle-class (mostly domestic) tourists stay in the older town of Zihuatanejo built around the bay (cf. Cowan 1987).

Every nation in Mesoamerica sees tourism as a vital component of its future development. Growth in the number of foreign tourist arrivals and an increase in touristic expenditures are seen as desirable. Even planners committed to ecotourism are concerned with how to handle more visitors without degrading the sites attracting these visitors. Comprehensive marketing and promotion programs need to be developed that emphasize local initiatives and empowerment rather than those of transnational corporations and governmental agencies. Rather than emphasizing a single element (e.g., beaches or pyramids), nations and communities need to develop diversified opportunity structures to attract foreign and domestic tourists.

Cole, Garold. 1978. American Travelers in Mexico, 1821-1972; A Descriptive Bibliography. Troy, NY: Whitson Publishing Company.

Cowan, Ruth Anita. 1987. Tourism Development in a Mexican Coastal Community. Ph.D. dissertation. Dallas, TX: Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University.

Evans-Pritchard, Deirdre. 1993. Mobilization of Tourism in Costa Rica. Annals of Tourism Research 20(4): 778-779.

Kemper, Robert V. 1979. Tourism in Taos and Patzcuaro: A Comparison of two Approaches to Regional Development. Annals of Tourism Research 6(1): 91-110.

Kemper, Robert V. 1993. The Anthropology of Tourism. In VNR’s Encyclopedia of Hospitality and Tourism, Mahmood Khan, Michael Olsen, and Turgut Var, eds.., pp. 591-612. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

MacDonald Escobedo, Eugenio. 1981. Turismo: Una Recapitulación (Historiografía de Conceptos Pronunciados por Gobernantes Mexicanos desde 1823). México, D.F.: Editorial Bodini.

Nuñez, Theron. 1963. Tourism, Tradition, and Acculturation: Weekendismo in a Mexican Village. Ethnology 2(3): 347-352.

Place, Susan E. 1991. Nature Tourism and Rural Development in Tortuguero. Annals of Tourism Research 18(2):186-201.

Robles García, Nelly and Jack Corbett. 1993. Heritage Tourism and Community Development: Conflicts over Land Use in Mitla, Oaxaca. Paper presented to the XIII International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, México, D.F., Mexico.

Rodríguez Woog, Manuel. 1993. La planeación turística en México: Reflexiones y perspectivas. Estudios y Perspectivas en Turismo 2(1): 27-47.

Royce, Anya Peterson. 1991. Music, Dance, and Fiesta: Definitions of Isthmus Zapotec Community. The Latin American Anthropology Review 3(2): 51-60.

Smith, Valene L. 1989. Introduction. In Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism, 2nd edition, Valene L. Smith, ed., pp. 1-17. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

van Den Berghe, Pierre L. 1994. The Quest for the Other: Ethnic Tourism in San Cristóbal, Mexico. Seattle: University of Washington Press.