Tamar Diana Wilson

Economic and Social Impacts of Tourism in Mexico

In developing its tourist industry, the Mexican government had three main goals: earning foreign exchange, creating employment, and diverting internal migration toward tourism development poles. Statistics on employment and in-migration to Mazatlán, Puerto Vallarta, Cancún, and Los Cabos show that it has been relatively successful in achieving these goals. However, Mexico has increased its dependency on loans, foreign capital, and foreign patronage and has imposed costs on the working class employed in low-waged and precarious tourist jobs, including de facto social and economic apartheid.

Theoretical Approaches to Mexican Wage Labor Migration

The author reviews theoretical approaches to the study of both internal and international migration in Mexico. (ANNOTATION)

Introduction The Impacts of Tourism in Latin America

Tourism has been examined by economists on both the left and the right, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists. There are more than a dozen journals in English alone dedicated to tourism research, most which have been established since 1990 (Pearce, 1999: 2). The World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, other area banks, and the United Nations are among the bodies that have sponsored research on tourism and funded tourism projects throughout the underdeveloped world in general and Latin America in particular (Jenkins, 1999: 55; Clancy, 2001: 41, 53; Lumsdon and Swift, 2001: 34), For example, the Inter-American Development Bank lent US

Tourism, Gender, and Ethnicity

800 million to Brazil in 1994 to develop tourism in the Northeast, then US

Violence against Women in Latin America

150 million in 2004 for the development of tourism in the South; a total of US

Women Beach and Marina Vendors in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico Considerations about Their Marginalization

34.1 million to Argentina to develop tourism in the province of Salta; and US

China Rising Threats and Opportunities for Brazil

300 million to Mexico in 1993 to develop its tourism infrastructure. It has also approved loans for tourism development in Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru and has proposed loans for this industry for Guayana, Honduras, and Paraguay (Inter-American Development Bank, 2004). The theoretical works on tourism that I have perused tend to utilize a costbenefit analysis when examining the effects of the tourism industry. As might be expected, neoclassical approaches—those that welcome “globalization”— underscore the benefits of tourism, whereas neo-Marxist and dependency approaches—which view globalization as a new form of imperialism—focus on its costs. Unfortunately, most studies neglect regional differences within the same country. Some locales are indeed the recipients of benefits, at least to a point, while others—perhaps most—are impacted negatively. In most places there are both positive and negative impacts, though this black-and-white distinction overlooks shades of grey. For example, the increased employment opportunities provided by tourism development help to solve unemployment and underemployment problems, but many of the jobs created are relatively unskilled, low-waged, and lacking in opportunities for advancement, similar to the jobs in hotels, restaurants, and maintenance work held by Mexican immigrants to the United States. Furthermore, the negative (and the positive) impacts should be assessed in relation to the impact of possible alternatives to tourism in any development program or balance-of-payments initiative. For example, would industrial development have more positive or more negative impacts than tourism development?

China and Latin America Processes and Paradoxes

Latin America and the Caribbean have become, over at least the past 50 years, increasingly popular tourist destinations. Though domestic tourism is becoming more common in the region, the majority of tourists come from the United States and Europe (Mowforth, Charlton, and Munt, 2008: 4). Tourists from these countries not only visit well-known mass tourism destinations but also travel to the most remote places and the smallest communities. Many take part in ecotourism, ethnic tourism, cultural tourism, spiritual tourism, and other alternatives to mass tourism. Tourism is different from the other major world industries in that the production of its goods and services occurs at the same time and place as their consumption (Mowforth and Munt, 2003). Tourists meet local people working in the tourism industry, and hosts and guests are in direct contact with each other. As a result, tourism should be analyzed not only as economic development, employment creation, or business but also as a practice constituted by the “interrelationality of tourism producers and consumers” (Aitchison, 2001: 134; see also Swain, 1995; 2001). To perceive tourism as a social relation calls for its recognition as a power relation; social interaction in tourism is an expression of power differentials and asymmetries based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, and sexuality (Kinnaird and Hall, 1996; Swain, 2001; see also van den Berghe, 1994: 18). This issue examines tourism development at the local level with a special focus on gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Tourists are consumers of the local constructions of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality in the form of experiences, encounters, fantasies, images, handicraft products, and, in the case of prostitution or romance tourism, the bodies of local men and women. Local men and women are not passive recipients of tourists; despite their subalternity, their everyday actions, agency, and interrelation with tourists transform tourism practices. Carving out their own niches, they may experience moments of power and influence the directions that tourism development may take and the way tourism is experienced and valued by both tourists and hosts. Tourism in Latin America and the Caribbean is typified by rapid development into an economically dynamic sector. In 1950 there were approximately 453896LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X12453896LATIn AMErICAn PErSPECTIvESDiana Wilson and Ypeij / InTroDUCTIon 2012

Introduction: The Urban Informal Economy Revisited

Violence against women is worldwide in scope. It occurs in both developed and developing countries and regardless of the dominant religion or political ideology. Among the forms it can take are intimate-partner or domestic violence rape whether by acquaintances or family members or during war and civil strife trafficking for purposes of prostitution or other forced work and debt bondage physical and sexual injury of prostitutes sex-selective abortion and female infanticide or neglect of girls. Violence against women also includes the structural violence that keeps women subordinated to men. This may be workplace violence in which womens bodies are used up in local factories and then trashed on the principle that a degree of turnover is needed to ensure flexibility of production. Structural violence may also take the form of patrimonial violence informed by patriarchal norms under which men are favored over women or even their male offspring in inheritance and the distribution of land and other property.

The Informal Economy and Social Programs in Mexico: A Critique:

The tourism sector in developing regions that are highly integrated into international markets has noticeable effects on the growth of the informal economy. For women vendors on the beach and the marina of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where the economy revolves around tourism and real estate, hawking souvenirs is an opportunity for empowerment and income, but it can also lead to their exploitation and self-exploitation. While women may suffer discrimination within the tourism sector, ambulant vending contributes to the reduction of poverty and may give women a greater say in their households and their communities. Nonetheless these women are marginalized by their low incomes and lack of social security, their lack of access to the education that might lead to formal-sector employment, their residential segregation, and, for some, the racism directed at indigenous people. El sector de turismo en regiones en vías de desarrollo que se encuentre altamente integrado con los mercados internacionales, tiene efectos en el crecimiento de la economía informal. Para las mujeres vendedoras ambulantes en las playas de Cabo San Lucas, México, en donde la economía se concentra en el turismo y bienes raíces, la venta de recuerdos puede proveer una oportunidad para capacitarse y ganar ingresos, pero también puede llevar a su explotación y auto explotación. Mientras las mujeres pueden sufrir a causa de la discriminación en el sector turístico, la venta ambulante puede reducir la pobreza y darles a las mujeres mayor voz en el hogar y la comunidad. Pese esto, las mujeres se encuentran marginadas por su bajo ingreso y falta de seguro social, su falta de acceso a la educación que puede conducir al empleo en el sector formal, su segregación residencial, y, para algunas, el racismo en contra de los indígenas.