The impact of tourism on Oaxaca, Mexico: From displacement to autonomy

The purpose of the study was to determine if tourism increased the wellbeing of Mexico and its people, specifically Oaxaca's Bahías de Huatulco and its indigenous people. The research involved secondary data, numeric and textual, which was organized into themes to assess the impact of tourism. The results indicated that the negative impact of tourism outweighs the gains. Tourism alleviated the indigenous people's sustainability incapability, but only after they were expropriated from their lands. The expropriation process and Mexico's economic development were explained by Harvey's accumulation by dispossession in which the state seizes and releases assets for profit to the private domain. Tourism has created an array of problems for the indigenous people, such as marginal access to land, changing of lifestyles, and environmental deterioration. The indigenous people that have benefited from tourism development were those who participated in alternative development by taking tourism development into their own hands.