May 1997
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1. Introduction
"Tourism helps to speed up development in poor countries. It is easier to attract tourists than to sell high-tech products on the world market." (OECD 1995, 39)
In Mexico, under the impacts of neoliberalism and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), this statement seems to be especially cogent for the "poor of the poor", the unskilled workers, subsistence farmers, unemployed or dislocated. Tourism in Mexico will probably create new jobs in the near future and has some comparative advantages against other sectors as well as against the U.S. and Canada. Therefore, until the overall level of Mexican development rises and Mexico's comparative advantages in tourism and elsewhere decreases (OECD 1995, 39), one could argue that tourism might offer a safe haven for some of Mexico's poor thereby diminishing some of NAFTA's expected drawbacks for the poor.
The present paper evaluates this hypothesis and looks at the potentials and pitfalls of tourism as a development strategy in contemporary Mexico, focusing on its Southern areas and in particular on Chiapas. In Section 2, I describe and analyze tourism in developing countries in general and its potentials for development. Some classifications and statistics are provided as well as a table with the impacts of tourism in third world countries. Section 3 starts with some statistics about tourism in Mexico and Chiapas and applies a comparison of "mainstream" and "alternative" tourism to Mexico and Chiapas. Section 4 gives an overview of official tourism strategies in Chiapas and suggests some alternative strategies of how to develop tourism in Chiapas in the near future. In Section 5, some preliminary conclusions are provided. I embark the paper, however, on two general clarifications.
DEFINITION OF TOURISM
The term tourism refers on one hand to the act of traveling and on the other hand to the modern multi billiondollar industry that caters to the tourist's need for transportation, accommodation, food, entertainment, recreation, health, souvenirs, and social contact. According to the World Tourism Organization (WTO), which publishes the most comprehensive database on tourism, a tourist is
"any person who travels to a country other than that in which s/he has his/her usual residence, but outside his/her usual environment, for a period of at least one night but not more than one year and whose main purpose of visit is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the country visited. This term includes people traveling for: leisure, recreation and holidays; visiting friends and relatives; business and professional; health treatment; religion/pilgrimages and other purposes" (from WTO webpage, available on: http://www.worldtourism.org/esta/statserv.htm; cf. Appendix).
This definition excludes domestic tourism although many of the impacts and much of the income from tourism are provided by national tourists as well as by international tourists. In this paper, I focus on international travel for pleasure and recreation (leisure tourism) . Given the multitude of issues and economic sectors involved in tourism studies and given the different classifications that exist to differentiate forms of leisure tourism (e.g., group/individual, adult/pre-adult, package/individual), I had to define some limitations and restrictions for the scope of this paper. In terms of the economic impact of tourism, my focus is on (direct and indirect) employment linkages (e.g., OECD 1995; Hiernaux/Rodríguez Woog 1990). In addition, I put emphasis on the differentiation between "mainstream" and "alternative" tourism. Generally, it will be shown that the actual impacts of tourism depend both on the kind of tourism and on the kind of social segments we are looking at (unskilled workers/ex-farmers or middle-class businessmen, e.g.)
NAFTA WILL WORSEN THE SITUATION OF MEXICO'S POOR
The Chiapas "rebels" of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and other opposition forces in Mexico argue that NAFTA harms the indigenous peoples and other poor sectors of Mexican society:
They fear that under NAFTA, American agribusiness would expand into Mexico and acquire large amounts of land. Larger imports of U.S. corn, beans etc. and other market pressures would drop prices and would wipe out their "primitive" economy as well as many of their cultural values and lifestyles (Collier 1994, 81). In addition, it is a general expectation that, after NAFTA, in Mexico the poor will get poorer, the rich richer. This paper, relying on a variety of preliminary evidence , will follow this line of argumentation, although, to be sure, Marcos' statement is certainly exaggerated. It is assumed that neoliberalism, in particular in the short run, will cause considerable harm for Mexico's bulk of poor people. The arising question is how the Mexican political system will be able to deal with the consequences of this scenario (migration to urban centers, social and political unrest, international pressure etc.) and what alternatives it has to offer.
2. Tourism and Development in Third World Countries
Before citing some recent tourism data, a general warning is appropriate:
"International Tourism statistics, despite improvements over the last decades, are fraught with gaps, divergent definitions, and a lack of uniformity in data collection methodologies, thus making comparisons difficult."
Mexico, e.g., uses for its purposes a definition of tourism which is different from the one utilized by the WTO (i.e., it excludes business tourists and limits the stay to six months). According to Article 42 of Mexico's population law, a tourist is a
Nevertheless, the WTO seems to be the most reliable and comparable source of statistics due to its universal operations. According to WTO, tourism receipts accounted for more than 8 percent of the world merchandise exports and onethird of world trade in services in 1995. The percentage of tourism into developing countries has increased constantly over the past two decades. In 1995, the "third world" received about 170 million international tourist arrivals, which is 30% of the world's total. The receipts from tourism into the third world (US$ 113 million) designate "North-South-tourism" (third world tourism overwhelmingly originates in first world countries) as the second largest source of income for developing countries. In Germany, e.g., in 1991 more than 20% of the population had travel experience into a third world country (BMZ 1993, 5-8).
When tourism is not included as a single input/output category in national or regional statistics, it was seen as a combination of three sectors (Stolp 1991, 41): 1. Hotels and restaurants, 2. Commerce (retail, wholesale, recreational), 3. Transportation (public/private). Some authors have argued that this definition is too limited, however, and that it excludes the entertainment sector, travel agencies, cruise lines, theme parks and other related services (Lundberg 1995, 138).
Despite its considerable macroeconomic potential in many countries, the growing kind of intercultural tourism often caught negative reactions from critics, especially the planned developments of resort areas and other forms of mainstream tourism. Mainstream tourism is obviously a very broad category and refers to the dominating, large-scale types and forms of tourism, sometimes also described as commercial/conventional, hard, or mass tourism (Pearce 1992, 19). The following table - focusing on mainstream tourism - tries to summarize the benefits and pitfalls of tourism into developing countries in general. The table can be used as an analytical framework for assessing impacts of other forms of tourism as well (by comparing those impacts with the impacts of mainstream tourism).
Table: Positive and Negative Impacts of (Mainstream) Tourism
"Positive" impacts "Negative" impacts
Source: My compilation with references from: Nuscheler 1995, 298; BMZ 1993, 5; Lundberg 1995; Nash 1996, 21-2; Harrison 1995, 19-34; Sinclair/Tsegaye 1990; Lea 1988; Pearce 1989; Hiernaux/Rodríguez Woog 1990.
Considering the above table, it becomes obvious that most of the benefits of (mainstream) tourism are economic ones (often on a macrolevel), while the negative impacts of tourism are frequently of a sociocultural kind (and on a microlevel). Within one given tourism project, those positive and negative results may very well coexist (Kadt 1979, xiv). Many sociocultural benefits and pitfalls of tourism, however, are not measurable or quantifiable in monetary terms and thus sometimes left out of evaluative efforts. Especially sociologists and anthropologists have heavily criticized the sometimes socioculturally destructive forces behind mainstream tourism. On the other hand, one should refrain from merely demonising tourism, which is counterproductive and redundant (Nash 1996, 119). Because it is such a major factor in the world's economy and because (similar to other major industries and "modern" economic activities) it faces major political, socioeconomic, cultural and (as a major consumer of energy and resources) ecological problems, finding sustainable ways of tourism is the necessary task. The official German development agency (BMZ, a counterpart to USAID) concludes:
"It is high time to develop sustainable forms of tourism in the destination countries of the third world. For that, culturally, environmentally, and socially sound as well as participatory tourism strategies are necessary."
Discussions about more or less "alternative" forms of tourism in the third world have enriched the "tourism and development" debate in the past 20 years. Alternative tourism topics cover a range of themes such as cultural and heritage tourism, ecotourism, sustainable tourism development, tourism and the environment, parks and protected areas, rural and communitybased tourism, indigenous peoples tourism and barrierfree tourism, all of which demonstrate the complexity and diversity of this evolving field in tourism studies, and some of which are clearly overlapping concepts (cf. the collection of Smith/Eadington 1992, in particular Pearce 1992). By comparing some general features of alternative tourism, it becomes clear that the concept strives at minimizing some of the potential drawbacks of mainstream tourism and relies on the broad participation of local communities. According to Pearce (1989, 101-102 who refers to a study by Cazes 1986), the features of alternative tourism can be differentiated by its distinctive values, processes, and forms:
If successfully launched, alternative tourism projects should be less socially disruptive, increase local participation and economic benefits, and foster a higher overall tourism acceptance by the host communities (Pearce 1989, 102). Due to these potentially favorable impacts of alternative tourism, this kind of tourism has also been named sustainable tourism, thereby apparently implying that mainstream tourism often is not sustainable (Cf. Nash 1996, 119; Kadt 1992; Boo 1991).
Although tourism potentials vary from country to country, third world tourism has often been seen as a possibility to launch "development" and/or "modernization" for particular countries (Kadt 1979, ix; Nash 1996, 128-129, Harrison 1992, 10). This kind of development can also be (depending on and parallel to the kind of tourism applied) either mainstream or alternative. And although Pearce argues that "the development literature generally ignores tourism", he states that "its growing economic and social significance and use in development studies over the last three decades" (1989, 10) proves that the issues of tourism and development are highly interwoven, no matter if one favors a neoliberal/neoclassical, a neo-Marxist or a "structural" approach to international development theory. An evaluation of tourism should always be considered within the context of the different stages of development countries may have reached and should also put into context and be compared with other efforts of "modernization" in that given country .
In Mexico, then, the case of tourism and development is especially complicated since the country is almost comprised of "two countries in one". On the one hand, there is the richer and modernized (mostly Northern and Center) part of the country and on the other hand the poor and marginalized (mostly Southern) areas of the country with the Chiapas' and Oaxacan highlands often considered to be an extension of Guatemala rather than part of Mexico .
3. Tourism and development in Mexico and Chiapas
MEXICO:
In 1995, international tourist flows to Mexico (19,870,000 total visitors , +16.1 per cent between 1994/95) registered the second highest growth (after Cuba: +19.6 per cent) of all countries of the Americas. However, receipts were down by 3.9 per cent (US$ 6,070 mil ), largely reflecting the peso devaluation against the dollar (the WTO uses current dollar). In terms of international arrivals, Mexico is the world's tourism destination No. 8 with 3.5 % share of the market (1995). In Latin America, Mexico is the most popular tourist destination with 85% of its tourists coming from the USA (Source for this paragraph: WTO, see footnote ).
According to the Bank of Mexico which uses different statistical methods than the WTO (see Section 2), the positive tourism balance for Mexico amounted to US$ 1.905 billion in 1991. The tourism GDP in 1991 was 164 007 million of 1980 pesos (3 % of total GDP) and employment in the tourism sector was 1.95 million employees (about 9 % of total national employment) in 1991 (Source for this paragraph: Concanaco Servytur 1992, 125-131, different data sources).
Tourism in Mexico has expanded rapidly since its beginnings. In 1929, not more than 20,000 tourists visited the country, but in the 1940s Acapulco started to become fashionable in the first world and tourism revenues tripled. From 1969 on, the state began to develop megaresorts such as Cancún. In 1974, FONATUR (the National Fund for Tourism Development) was set up, and by 1989 had financed the building of 128,000 new rooms. It had an annual advertising budget of US$30m. Cancún accounted for a large bulk of the investments, but FONATUR is also developing other megaresorts such as Zihuatenejo/Ixtapa (Guerrero, northwest along the coast from Acapulco), Bahías de Huatulco (Oaxaca), and Los Cabos in Baja California (Tim Burford, on http://www.planeta.com/planeta/97/0297burford.html).
CHIAPAS:
The most complete recent tourism statistics for Chiapas were available for 1992 and 1993. In terms of international visitors, Chiapas received 336,240 foreign guests in 1993, which is only 27.6 % of the total number of 1,217,944 tourists counted by INEGI . There were 295 establecimientos de hospedaje registered (only two five star hotels) with 8,084 beds and 227 establecimientos de preparación y servicio de alimentos y bebidas. Hotels and restaurants together employed 4,103 people. About 80 % of the tourists stayed in the capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Tapachula, San Cristóbal de las Casas, and Palenque with the two latter towns being by far the favorite sites for international visitors (which stayed 5.41 days in average and spent about $np 165 in average per day). France, the U.S. and Germany were the main sources of international tourism for Chiapas (all data from INEGI 1994 and Orozco 1994, 111-112).
In the months after the Zapatista rebellion and again recently, tour operators packaging Mexico have reported scattered cancellations of travel packages. The same happened in two other Mexican states during last August, allegedly due to rebel attacks. But tour operators and tourism officials in the affected areas (the central and southern states of Guerrero, Chiapas and Oaxaca) said media reports of the danger faced by tourists were exaggerated and they expressed the "hope that the attacks would not have lasting repercussions on tourist arrivals for bookings to Mexico." (Mexico Business Monthly, October 1, 1996, No. 9, available on Lexis Nexis). Despite the continuing Zapatista rebellion, tourism in the Mundo Maya region (which includes Chiapas as well as Campeche, Tabasco, Quintana Roo and Yucatán) has grown by 25% so far this year, according to the federal government while SEDETUR states that, in 1995, the number of international tourists visiting Chiapas has grown to 596,570, mostly from Europe. (Latin American Weekly Report, October 31, 1996, 501, available on Lexis Nexis)
MAINSTREAM VS. ALTERNATIVE
In Section 2, I introduced the idea to differentiate between mainstream (resort) and alternative tourism. In Mexico as well as in many other countries, the government has concentrated its efforts on developing mass-tourism markets. As a consequence, studies and socioeconomic data on tourism "deal essentially with one particular form, namely resort tourism" (Pearce 1989, 14). In Mexico, most evaluated tourism projects are and were part of mainstream national resort development, e.g., in Acapulco, Ixtapa, Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, Bahías de Huatulco. Nevertheless, the nature of tourism in Mexico is much more diverse than the limited choice of tourism studies might suggest. Mexico offers a vast array of attractions: among them are beaches and water sports, pre-Columbian archeological sites, colonial architecture, indigenous peoples and cultures, nature parks, wildlife, fishing and hunting, photographic panoramas, virgin rainforest, vast mountains etc.
Unlike neighboring Oaxaca with its Bahías de Huatulco, in Chiapas no resort beach site has been developed (due to a lack of appropriate beaches). The only mentionable but not overly attractive beaches of Puerto Arista and Boca de Cielo are overwhelmingly visited by chiapanecos. The main attractions in Chiapas for international visitors are the Mayan highlands around the colonial town of San Cristóbal , Chiapa de Corzo and the Sumidero Canyon National Park , the splendid ruins of Palenque, Yáxchilan etc., the Lagos de Montebello, and the remaining rainforest of the Selva Lacandona (now partly occupied by the EZLN). Given the particular attractions of these sites, most of them are well-apt to be targeted by alternative forms of tourism like cultural and heritage tourism, ethnic tourism (cf. Van den Berghe 1995), ecotourism, communitybased tourism etc. (see Sections 2 and 4).
To evaluate some of the major efforts of mainstream tourism development in Mexico, we have to look at other states than Chiapas. As stated, most research on tourism impacts has been done in the Southern resort beaches of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo and in Puerto Vallarta/Jalisco (Stolp et. al. 1991, Pedersen/Láscurain 1990, Kadt and Evans 1979, Chant 1992). These studies predominantly tend to take a critical standpoint on mainstream tourism development in Mexico. It is characteristic for Mexico, due to the traditional centralized political system and almighty power of the PRI and the elites from the larger cities, that local participation has often been very low in tourism development as well as in other areas. One publication suggests that this "internal necolonialism" has been especially well documented in the case of Puero Vallarta's rapid expansion as a tourism destination (Kadt 1979).
As a very attractive beach destination, Vallarta has been chosen in accordance with federal plans to build on natural growth in an otherwise predominantly agricultural region. In the late 60s, an international airport and new paved roads were constructed by the government. Growing from 10,000 inhabitants in the 60s to 160,000 in 1986, Vallarta was "the most rapidly growing tourism resort on the Mexican Pacific" (Chant 1992, 95). Although Chant, apart from economic growth and rapid modernization, sees some positive consequences of tourism in Vallarta on the microlevel (more employment, in particular for women, a freer "social ambience", in particular for women), most of the negative impacts of tourism listed in the table above, are also pertinent in Vallarta (ecological damages, many transnational operations and foreign ownership, seasonality of employment and production, heavy migration to the area, dependencies on tourism market, destruction of subsistence agriculture in the region, low local participation and impotence in decision making, internal social problems and acculturation, cf. Chant 1992, Evans 1979).
These patterns observed in Vallarta are characteristic for most Mexican tourism resorts. Perhaps the most drastic example of centralized tourism planning in Mexico is the recent development of the Bahías de Huatulco in Oaxaca. With the government's (FONATUR's) intervention being much higher than in Vallarta but with a similar history, Huatulco so far has not gained the expected economic success. In January September 1996, Cancún had 1.795 million hotel visitors (vs. 1.671 million for the same period in 1995). Other popular beach resorts in Mexico were Acapulco (1.532 million vs. 1.408 million in 1995) and Puerto Vallarta (680,694 vs. 639,567). Huatulco had the smallest number of all resorts with only 125,315 visitors vs. 115,912 in the previous year. Another author states:
"Foreign investment has not been as enthusiastic as was hoped. When you ask who is building the next hotel, the director of development smiles and shrugs... Huatulco is not for people who are interested in Mexico. Apart from indifferent shopping in La Crucecita or Santa Cruz (both new towns), you are in international country" (Timothy Rice: Or try Huatulco, in: Times Newspaper Limited, February 22, 1997, available on Lexis Nexis)
An anthropological study about the socioeconomic consequences of tourism development in Huatulco focuses on the high "price of paradise" which had to be paid by the local community of Santa Cruz Huatulco and other local settlements. According to the author, FONATUR showed a very reckless "top-down" attitude towards the local population basically destroying a whole community by relocating much of it to La Crucecita. The destruction of communally built structures was compensated with "meager payment for expropriated land". Also, despite new employment options for locals (e.g., as taxidrivers, street vendors, cleaning staff, handicrafts traders) proportionally few economic benefits filtered down to local populations. The principal beneficiaries were landowners and those with the financial means to enter the market.
"Consequently, whatever benefits may have brought to the area (improved transportation, communication, and the like) were more than offset by its all too predictable tendency to marginalize (economically, socially, and culturally) many for the benefit of a few... [T]he sole function of local residents is to serve the whims of wealthy nationals and foreigners, only to disappear to their segregated communities at the end of their work day." (Duke 1990, 128-129)
Being "the very antithesis of grassroots development", Huatulco now also faces drastic environmental changes as a consequence of its rapid development. The local resistance to the government's plans continue to exist and some of the recent armed attacks by the EPR guerilla in Huatulco (as well as in Acapulco) are partly due to the total ignorance for local interests shown by the government (interview with Michael Duke, Austin, April 1997). Can there be lessons learned from those cases of "overdevelopment" in Acapulco, Huatulco, and Vallarta? How can unsustainable planning and major ecological damages be prevented, how can more backward and forward linkages for locals be created? How can we assure that the poor sectors and the local populations get access to much needed capital in order to reach sustainable, self-guided and participatory tourism development? What are the prospects for tourism in Chiapas?
4. Strategies of tourism development in Chiapas
NATIONAL TRENDS:
Recently, official tourism rhetoric in Mexico has become more diverse. In the wake of the worldwide success and popularity of ecotourism, official Mexican advertising has begun to shift focus from pure "sun and sand" attractions to cultural, historic, and environmental topics. Healy (1997, 11) even sees Mexican tourism "under active reexamination by policy makers". Nevertheless, he also states that the ecotourism "market niche" has not yet been coordinated and developed very efficiently and that many small projects "receive little help from government". Only in the Yucatán peninsula have real ecotourism circuits developed (Healy 1997, 11)
Despite the new rhetoric, government strategies still seem to continue following the path chosen in the 1960s. Efforts to develop tourism are increasing in intensity and are focusing on mainstream (resort) tourism: "We have reached the conclusion that we must be able to advertise Mexico's tourism products with the intensity and quality of the world's foremost travel promoters," says Silvia Hernandez, Mexico's tourism minister (speech available at: http://mexicotravel.com/extra/speech_eng.html). In the same speech, Silvia Hernandez assures that the Mexican government will continously foster the development of tourism on "two fields: the first is to provide support to infrastructure works, and the other involves deregulation and facilitation".
According to Carlos Fernandez, Director General of Marketing for SECTUR, NAFTA helped to further spur the interests of international hotel chains to expand and upgrade properties throughout Mexico. This, in turn, brought about a similar trend in the domestic chains and independently owned and operated hotels. As a result, according to Fernandez, more than 100 properties nationwide now offer the kinds of technology and fluent communication "that executives expect". Fernandez sees that now groups and individual guests "are finding that the level of services, facilities, and general infrastructure are on a par with what they experience in the United States." Domestically, SECTUR is working with the private sector to build convention centers in key locations throughout the country. Last October, four such facilities were operating in Acapulco, Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Cancún all equipped with the latest technologies. A fifth convention center is planned in Puerto Vallarta (see Incentive, October 1996, vol. 170, No., p. M1M2, available on: Lexis Nexis)
To complete the image scenario of Mexico' future tourism scenario, the country's Director of Tourism, Ricardo Ampudia asserts: "What Mexico needs is more entertainment and more megaresorts, golf courses, shows and shopping centers," adding that casinos were likely to attract such entertainment venues. "We have received positive results from the firstphase study on how casinos will affect tourism," the tourism director said. "They will make Mexico more competitive to other destinations." Francisco Zinser, president of Mexican hotel chain Grupo Situr, agrees: "We must use Las Vegas as the model, but on a much smaller scale, of course."
BRINGING LAS VEGAS TO CHIAPAS?
Surprisingly, despite Chiapas' drastic socioeconomic problems, its recent rebellion, and its inequalities in the distribution of wealth and political power, official strategies for tourism development seem to be the same than in the rest of the country. This is partly indicated by the emphasis on improving the state's infrastructure. The recently opened Palenque Airport is just five minutes away from the famous ruins. Two more airports one in San Cristóbal and another in Comitán are under construction and scheduled to open by the end of 1997. Wheras an airport for "Mexico's most beautiful town", San Cristóbal, undeniably bears importance for most of its citizens and businessmen, it also has the potential of destroying the base of San Cristóbal's successful ethnic tourism by bringing in "the great hordes of extremely hurried tourists" and exceeding the town's crucial saturation point for tourism (Van den Berghe 1994, 148-154).
Also under construction is a new highway near the Guatemalan border that will connect the archeological sites of Bonampak and Yaxchilán, the lake region of Montebello and the archeological sites of Chincultik and Lagartero (Choosing Chiapas, by Emilio Lezcano, March 24, 1997, p.122, available on Lexis Nexis). Lamentably, this highway will cut right through the last remaining track or tropical rainforest in North America, the Selva Lacandona/ Selva Maya thereby bringing even more new settlers, farmers, and "development" to an area already troubled by land conflicts and environmental degradation.
Soon expecting an end to the country's ban on casinos, a Mexico City-based firm, Corporación de Planificación, cooperating with and copying similar projects in native U.S American areas, wants to build casinos in Chiapas (thereby supposedly funding "Mexican indigenous development"...). According to their own words, the firm took great care to consult humanrights organizations and indigenous representatives before launching its Chiapas program. But Mexico's National Indigenous Congress, which convened for the first time last October, has not taken a stand on the casinos yet. The Zapatistas are rejecting the proposal, according to their U.S. representative, Cecilia Rodriguez. "The Zapatista National Liberation Army is focusing on their lands, period," she says. "It's their livelihood and their way of life that's at stake. Casinos are out in space." But Rodriguez sees a good chance that the project will happen. "The Mexican government has always had economic and political relations with indigenous people to try to buy them off and to divide and confuse people at a community level."
There are several reasons for the government's emphasis on mass-tourism (most of them listed in the left part of the table in Section 2). Especially important seem to be its foreign exchange revenues and its "proven employment benefits" (Pedersen/Lascuraín 1990, 12). While those benefits appear to be higher in quantitative terms than with many alternative tourism projects, they are often lower in qualitative terms and usually require a higher sociocultural price often to be paid for by local communities. As shown in Section 2, many alternative tourism projects target to keep this "price" lower. Van den Berghe concludes his book about ethnic tourism in San Cristóbal with the following argument:
"In sheer economic cost-benefit terms, ethnic tourism is really much more profitable and beneficial to a greater number of people than seems at first blush, and [...it] produces little environmental or cultural pollution. Conversely, the manna of luxury coastal tourism brings much less than it seems: many profits are exported; it benefits far fewer people; and its environmental and cultural costs are staggering." (Van den Berghe 1993, 155)
The author also argues that the success of San Cristóbal is partly attributable to the "fact that the development was not centrally planned, but that it was locally controlled" and based on labor intensive small-scale enterprises (Van den Berghe 1994, 152). While Mexico has excelled in attracting visitors to beach resorts, it has - despite its biodiversity - done little to effectively promote alternative forms of tourism (although ecotourism is now included in official programs, websites and brochures). Environmental activist Ron Mader says ''ecotourism, unfortunately, has always been a 'small fish' for tourism officials.'' He says the tourism ministry has been very successful at developing megaresorts, but environmental tourism ''has always taken a back seat.'' Mader says the idea has worked well in Ecuador, where ecotourism is the secondlargest source of foreign currency. In Mexico, the biggest barrier to reaching such sites is the lack of information directions, itineraries and accommodation. He says increased travel to environmental spots could channel additional funds to rural communities (U.P.I. January 10, 1997: Ecotourism slow to catch on in Mexico, available on Lexis Nexis). Healy (1997, 12) concludes that "Mexico could be a world leader in ecotourism", but that this scenario "has not yet become a reality."
The kind of "glossy" ecotourism proposed by the government has already drawn criticism. According to Burford (1997), it "tends to involve groups visiting Mayan ruins, nature reserves and hot springs and taking rafting trips, while still traveling in airconditioned buses and staying in hotels with satellite television, and is little more than a variant on tourism anywhere else." Healy (1997, 6 and 9) quotes two examples of unsustainable and "false" ecotourism sites in Xcaret and Playacar (both located in Quintana Roo, in proximity to Cancún). The first one refers to an artificial "Mayan" snorkeling trail created with plenty of dynamite and the second to the only golf course in the world "adorned with Mayan ruins". But even in its "purest" form, ecotourism can only be one contribution to (alternative) tourism and is not a viable solution for all problems within the tourism and development debate. The inflationary use of the term has overshadowed the innovative and alternative direction of ecotourism. Given the massive distribution of the ecotourism approach (or at least, its rhetoric) and its expansion into one of the most important sources of income in many countries, it cannot surprise that, despite its low-impact intention, mainstream ecotourism sometimes faces similar problems and criticisms as "regular" tourism. Paradoxically, the growth of ecotourism, especially in Belize and Costa Rica, has been responsible for damaging natural areas and habitats due to overdevelopment (cf. Kersten 1997b).
Nevertheless, the environmental damages of conventional tourism are usually much more severe (e.g. in the case of a new pier for cruise ships planned on Cozumel island ). Moreover, many alternative tourism projects have proven to be quite successful. A more widely applied approach is community based (eco-) tourism:
"A community approach to tourism suggests the development of a community as a core component of a tourism destination area or tourism product. At the same time it suggests some control by residents over tourism development and management." (Woodley 1993, 137)
It is community based because local communities maintain "some" (or better: major) control over the management and the profits of projects. The approach tries to combine conservation, tourism, socioeconomic development, and cultural preservation in one, a truly grand task. Community based ecotourism can be one possible path to let local people benefit from the modern tourist sweeping into their lands, providing a tool for community development and conservation by using tourism as an existing fact which can be useful for locals - if applied correctly (for more specific information, see Kersten 1997b). Especially important within this strategy is the focus on community development and local and regional participation in marginalized sectors (e.g., indigenous groups). It has become clear that the sustainability of many tourism and development projects depend on the effective participation of local people (see, e.g., Whelan 1991).
Due to the government's focus on mass-tourism, it is not surprising that most alternative tourism projects in Chiapas and in the Selva Maya have been initiated by NGOs (e.g., The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Na Bolom and many other smaller regional groups, cf. Kersten 1997b). The Ejido Emiliano Zapata in Ocosingo, Chiapas, has independently founded a community run ecotourism business (my own visit, December 1996). Many of these projects include features such as homestays in Mayan families, village guesthouse and ecotrail programs, the maintenance and management of community centers, the promotion of handicrafts, and music and dance projects. Often they also include the control and (if necessary) limitation of tourist numbers, a rotation of visitors between villages and families, internal quality and cleanliness controls, and communal fund projects (e.g., 20% of all tourism income flows into a common fund which finances education, health, and environmental projects in the communities as well as community-run promotion offices). Part of the money from tourism can thus be used to foster rural development in other areas. While these projects are certainly not easy to launch, some of the current projects have been quite successful (cf. Beavers 1995, Pedersen 1995, Kersten 1997b, and the articles in February 1997 issue of El Planeta Plática, available on http://www.planeta.com/planeta/97/0297.html).
The issue here, however, is not the success or failure of individual projects but the overall strategy of tourism development in Chiapas. I argue that for Chiapas, official organizations should put a much higher emphasis on alternative tourism than they have traditionally done in other parts of Mexico and support local and regional NGOs in their efforts to introduce such projects. The reasons for this argument can be summarized as follows:
Naturally, not all areas and communities in Chiapas are suitable for (alternative) tourism projects and they can only be part of a much broader development strategy for this region of Mexico. A careful assessment of all issues is necessary before implementing any projects. For alternative tourism, a number of publications have developed such recommendations (Pedersen 1990, 16-25; WTO, cited in Nash 1996, 128-129; Hiernaux/Rodríguez Woog 1990, 16-17; Stolp 1991, 71-72; Van den Berghe 148-155; Brandon 1993, Drake 1991)
5. Conclusion
Tourism is a main factor in Mexico's economy providing employment and linkages to other branches of the economy. It should remain a priority in regional and national development. However, tourism is not per se a safe haven for Mexico's poor population. Mexico's tourism policy has relied unduly on short-term economic indicators and has downplayed certain structural, social, cultural and environmental factors which affect the tourist industry and its long-term viability. Diversifying its "tourism's offerings by a reconceptualization of market segmentation and the identification of different types of tourism" should be one of Mexico's top priorities (Hiernaux/ Rodríguez Woog 1990, 16-17) and not just a superficial marketing slogan.
Mexico's tourism industry is already highly developed and too large to only rely on one or two types of tourism. Alternative forms of tourism such as ecotourism and cultural/ archeological/ ethnic tourism can and should be more emphasized. For many visitors of mainstream tourism sites and resorts, alternative tourism can at least be an "add-on option" offering day trips into natural areas and maybe creating some environmental awareness and limited income for local people and natural parks (cf. Nash 1996, 132 and Healy 1997, 5-6). In other areas, however (like Chiapas, Oaxaca and some parts of the Yucatán) alternative tourism developments should not just be an "add-on", but should be given the highest priority considering the natural infrastructure and the sociocultural attributes of these states.
Contemplating the national history of tourism, in Chiapas the government should focus on decentralized, community based tourism. Chiapas has high potentials to attract the growing number of ecologically and culturally orientated tourists who seek to stay away from large beach resorts and could become Mexico's haven for alternative travelers. Those tourists, in turn, have a high potential to contribute to the sustainable development of a region which is expected to be negatively affected by neoliberal politics and modernization recently culminating with the NAFTA.
The author also wrote
Community Based Ecotourism and Community Building: The Case of the Lacandones and
can be reached via email: kersten@mail.utexas.edu
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