Turismo alternativo y localización territorial: el caso de la Península de Yucatán, México.

Official impulse to alternative tourism pursues environmental conservation and improvement of living conditions of indigenous and peasant populations with relative results. Various authors suggest that it is a capitalist way of appropriating biocultural territories. Taking into consideration that territorial location is central to economic performance measured as number of tourists and income, we analyze statistically their relationships with three types of location as well as total financing. We used information from the Atlas de turismo alternativo en la peninsula de Yucatan. Results show that income depends on number of tourists, but location may modify their association. Better economic performance relates to closeness to massive tourism places and financing was granted to enterprises with lesser income. Alternative tourism policy seems to be based on the notion that all places may become tourist products regardless of their territorial location.