Indeed, while the major hotel chains and business situated in the recreational business district reap in the profits from the well-healed tourist traffic, there is little "trickle-down" economics at work in Cancun so that the poor stay poor while the rich just get richer. For example, Jafari concludes that tourist ghettoes "also bring little economic benefit to local communities as visitors have few opportunities to spend money on local goods and services; whereas resort income is maximized, the majority of tourist spending occurring within the (often foreign-owned) resort complex" (254).
This spatial separation between tourists, visitors and others from local residents and workers has been further reinforced and even encouraged by the inordinately high rate of migration to the area which can be attributed both to the climate and location, but to employment opportunities for Latin Americans as well. As a result, child labor is rampant in Cancun. For instance, according to Castellanos (2007), "In Cancun, adolescent migrants as young as age eleven work in the service and construction industries. They can be found cleaning hotels and private homes, selling goods on the street, and mixing cement for building crews. Not surprisingly, domestic service is one of the most common forms of child labor" (2).
The demand for unskilled labor to support the service industries that have cropped up in Cancun has increased over the past four decades or so across the board as well in ways that have fundamentally, and some say adversely, affected other aspects of the cultural geography of the city. For example, Hashimoto emphasizes that "Tourism development tends to have an impact on labor markets, attracting mainly unskilled laborers in direct and induced jobs. The migration of laborers causes not only a shift in human resources in the primary and secondary industries, but also the relocation of the population" (82). This has certainly been the case in Cancun as well. For instance, Castellanos adds that, "The construction of Cancun in the early 1970s intensified migration in the region, particularly from indigenous communities, and stimulated the local economy's reliance on service work, a gendered division of labor, and global capital. The resulting migration of adults and, more recently, adolescents has deeply affected the social life of indigenous communities in the peninsula" (2). The increasingly young and largely unskilled workforce that has resulted from this unplanned but relentless migration has created an even more divisive separation between affluent tourists and the local residents who make their visits possible.
There are some viable alternatives to the existing approach to development and administration, though, that hold some promise in addressing the foregoing problems for local residents and foreign visitors alike in sustainable ways. In this regard, Hashimoto emphasizes that, "Sustainability is a buzzword in the contemporary development discussion and the use of the term in the tourism industry is no exception. As national resources, including culture and heritage, are the main assets in tourism, it has been argued that economic well-being should not precede social and environmental well-being" (83). In fact, social and environmental well-being of the local residents of Cancun can be promoted by using a fundamentally different approach to tourism that encourages rather than discourages foreign visitors from touring the regions in which these people live and work. For instance, Hashimoto concludes that, "Officials have debated whether alternative forms of tourism rather than mass tourism, which has been the mainstream product for quite some time, are more sustainable. Ecotourism, particularly community-based ecotourism, is becoming the mainstay of alternative tourism development in least developed countries" (83).
Conclusion
The research showed...
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