Globalization Tourists and HeritageTourists in American Culture:

The Case of Latin American HistoricDistricts

Joseph L. ScaipaciDepartment of Geography

Virginia Tech

IntroductionThe tourist population from the developed North Atlantic realm is hardly

ubiquitous in its sojourns throughout the less developed regions of Africa, Asia,and Latin America. In broad terms, we can differentiate two distinct consumerpopulations and venues that constitute worldwide tourism. On the one hand,there exists globalization tourism that attracts mainstream customers in searchof secure, safe, and fairly predictable settings that include bargain-pricedand large facilities destinations. For U.S. tourists that means searching for adestination that sparks something more exotic than what we might find in, say,Florida or California. A comparable Latin American and Caribbean destinationmight be Cancun, Mazitlan, Montego Bay, Rio de Janeiro, or Punta del Este(Boxhill et al. 2002). Not surprisingly, fairly well known international chainsoften administer these rather large, oceanfront properties. A list of propertiesby Sheraton, Marriott, Super Clubs, Hilton, Melii, or Super Clubs afford theglobalization tourists (GTers) the familiar standard array of facilities that includepool, multiple dining venues, on-ground entertainment, dish-network televisionfrom around the world, and the normal host of credit-card affiliates noted at theregistration check-in. Anne Tyler (1990) richly portrays one of these GTers inher novel, TheAccidental Tourist, an earnest individual perhaps more interestedin the standard checklist attributes of places and hotels than local variationssuch places might afford the foreign visitor.

Another international group of tourists form a distinct consumer culturein that they seek out the cultural landscapes and icons that represent historicalperiods, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and distinct periods of art and architectureetched into the cityscapes of towns and cities. These international tourists compriseheritage tourists that are common among the ranks of Elderhostel goers, youngacademics and students, and others with a keen interest in the preservation andconservation of material and non-material culture. For them, small and quirky

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scttings are preferable to larger and predictable oncs. This cohort constitutes whatI shall call heritage tourists (or HTers). In both instances, these consumers seekcertain predictability: A set of attributes and allures that constitute the marketingof places that form what Urry (2002) calls the 'tourist gaze.'

The purpose of this paper is to discern the attributes of certain places inthe Latin American historic district (centro hist6rico) as they pertain to bothglobalization tourists and heritage tourists. To be sure, the categories are notnecessarily mutually exclusive; each type of consumer may partake in the other'sconsumption sphere. For instance, a tourist traveling to an international chainhotel at Cancun's beaches may take a day trip to one of the nearby Mayan templesand pyramids. A January tourist in Rfo's Copacabana beach might overnight atOuro Preito, Brazil, one of that nation's best preserved colonial center's. And aVeracruz vacationer might be tempted to make a day trip to Puebla's UNESCOWorld Heritage Site to break away from the beach scene.

I begin with a brief review of tourism and globalization that anchors thesubsequent discussion of the Latin American historic center (centro histirico).Next, I explore the processes of globalization and heritage tourism in order tofully differentiate the GTers from the HTers. I argue that, rightly or wrongly,heritage tourism presents a seemingly unproblematic interpretation of the past.The American consumer may be unaware of the debates surrounding whose pastis being presented, and whose memory is being preserved in the Latin Americanhistoric district. I conclude that heritage tourism in Latin America and theCaribbean will likely continue to attract an increasing number of Americansas the unique attributes of heritage sites provide HTers with an alternative tothe banal landscapes that globalization tourism has imposed.

Tourism and GlobalizationHeritage tourism and globalization have a long history in western literature

and they have revealed their uneasy tension in nuanced but pivotal ways.Heritage tourism aims to celebrate a broad array of architectural, artistic, cultural,curatorial elements of local culture. Globalization, on the other hand, aims tohomogenize, eradicate, and make sublime much of what is local and unique. Iargue that globalization provides opportunities and challenges that shape thelocal contours of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Latin America. I suggestthat facile interpretations about globalization and cultural diversity need to beanchored with detailed knowledge of leisure spaces. To set the stage we turn toa brief discussion of urban heritage sites in Latin America.

On Defining the Centro HistoricoHistoric centers in Latin American towns and cities are anything but isolated

from the forces of change. Property owners and governments change buildings,destroy them, and dictate which social classes shall use them. There is a consensusthat the major changes evident in these neighborhoods today began in the latterpart of the 19th century, and accelerated in the middle of the 20th century.

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Between 1930 and 1960, most Latin American historic preservationistsaddressed single public and private buildings, or an occasional town square.Rarely did they focus on a multi-block segment of the original colonial core.While today there is general accord among municipal, national, and internationalentities that these valuable places should be restored (Tung 2001; Hardoy1992; Gutman 1992; Hardoy and Gutman 1992), the pace of change and thequality of historic preservation remains uneven. What we ascertain from novels,photographs, art, land-use studies, and ethnographic accounts of residents arejust a 'snapshot' of the evolution of these districts.

If Latin American architectural historians have elevated the discussion ofheritage sites, land use and zoning enforcement has lagged behind. The 196 0switnessed considerable interest in Latin American historic districts (the Braziliansbegan well before WWII in selected towns and cities). Thought of largely asa dilemma of architectural preservation, the decade saw legislative reform thatset out clear guidelines for urban renewal, building codes, and preservationefforts. In 1964, protecting the isolated national monument expanded to include

"modest works that have, through time, acquired cultural significance (CartaInternacional... 1974). By 1967, the Organization of American States' conferencein Quito (often called the Carta de Quito or Quito Letter) moved to link theseideas more closely with legislation and urban planning. This produced a spateof research on widely acclaimed historical places such as Antigua, Guatemala,Cuzco, Peru, and Moquegua, Peru. The pivotal Quito Letter strengthenedhistoric preservation throughout Latin America. It sent a message to all nationsto address planning concerns for historical districts, and to capture the socialhistories of these places. UNESCO, foreign governments (mostly Spain, Italy,Holland and Canada), and philanthropic agencies helped to publicize WorldHeritage Sites in the 1980s. However, the economic downturn in the late 1970sand 1980s (known as the 'lost decade' in Latin America) made governments hardpressed to allocate money to historic preservation, when other more 'immediate'needs such as schooling, water, and health care required attention (Well andScarpaci 1992).

The Quito Colloquium defined historical districts as "those living settlementsthat are strongly conditioned by a physical structure stemming from the past,and recognizable as being representative of the evolution of a people" (PNUD/UNESCO 1977, n.p., my translation). Primarily, people live in historic districtstoday, unlike the archeological ruins of such pre-Colombian settlements asMachu Pichu, Peru, Tikal, Guatemala, or Tulum, Mexico. Also inherent in thisdefinition is the idea that historical districts are not limited to the stock of theirbuilt environments: building, town squares, fountains, colonnaded galleries,sculptures, filigree ironwork, strectlamps, and arches. Rather, historic districtsinclude non-material culture such as the people, their lifestyles and traditions,productive activities, beliefs, and urban rituals (saints' days, founder's days,pre-Lenten carnivals).

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The Latin American centro hist6rico largely reflects a low population densitywhen compared to the metropolitan area. Its skyline is lower than the modernCentral Business Districts (CBD) and its accompanying skyscrapers. Carri6n(1992) points out that the skyscraper-endowed central business district in theLatin American city responded to the late demands of industrialization, unlikethe centro histSrico.

"If one reviews the historical processes of other centros histdricos in LatinAmerica... it is clear that [the historic centers'] demise stemmed fromthe fast pace of urbanization, from import-substitution industrialization,from the development of banking and commerce as well as strong wavesof migration" (Carri6n 1992, 59; my translation).

Clearly, the CBD and the centro histdrico are two distinct places and shouldnot be conflated in studying the Latin American city.

Streetscapes of the 'typical' historic district are inviting, and both thestreet width and building height are captivating to the pedestrian. One canappreciate pre-modern skilled work in the plasterwork, ironwork, balconies(cantilevered and otherwise), rails, archways, pediments, doorways, columns(Ionic, Doric, Corinthian and mixtures thereof), and a variety of roof tiles.Architectural historians have written volumes on the origin and modificationof each element (Covo 1996), all which combine to make the centro histdricoaestheticaly pleasing.

Globalization and Heritage TourismThe close of the 20th century quickly secured a place for the term

'globalization' in the world's languages. Once an isolated term confined topolicy analysts and scholars, the term has practically become a household word,thanks to a dizzying array of 'gee whiz!' technologies. One way to gauge itsuse in academic circles is the number of citations in the Library of CongressCard Catalog. In 1987, there were no entries for 'globalization' as a keywordin the library's database. In 1994, Waters (2000) found 34 entries in the cardcatalog. In August 2000 I found 884 entries, and by August 2001 there were1,384 entries; a 57% increase in eleven months (excluding the British spelling'globalisation', n= 213). While the use of the term is on the rise, its precisemeaning is less clear.

Globalization is a slippery concept that has come to mean everythingsimultaneously. The World Bank defines it as "the growing interdependenceof countries resulting from the integration of trade, finance, people, and ideasin one global marketplace. International trade and cross-border investmentflows are the main elements of this integration" (Soubbotina 2000, 66). I use itmainly to refer to a shrinking of time and space through the rise of informationtechnologies. We can theorize the economic, political, and cultural dimensionsof globalization to make our review of world problems more precise (Lernerand Bohli 2000).

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As firms and individuals exchange information and commodities at aquickening pace, the abilities of the nation-state and its regulatory agenciesdiminish. That means nations slowly lose control over the flows of information,capital, and technology that pass through their boundaries. Some argue thatthese 'new spaces of globalization' represent a victory of post-Fordist capitalism(Dicken 1999) because new types of investment are no longer based on thetraditional components of economic development that included natural resourcesand cheap labor. Because labor unions and the conventional blocs of voters aremade increasingly powerless in a globalized world, transnational capital canmore easily circumvent the traditional coalitions who looked to the state forprotection and support (Mishra 1999; Afshar and Pezzoli 2001; Korten 1995;Mander and Goldsmith 1996).

These reasons highlight how globalization is inextricably tied to thetransformation of the centro histdrico. Whether the changes stem from remittancessent by Ecuadorian dishwashers in New York and New Jersey; European jet-setters or narco money-laundcrs in Cartagena; or European multinationalsin Habana Vieja, the evidence is clear: those who live in the historic quartersmust articulate their needs in a policy arena that is increasingly dominated byinternational capital.

Towards a Heritage Geography of the Latin American HistoricDistrict: Whose Landscape? Whose Memory?

The study of historical landscapes is fundamentally a geographic inquirybecause of the concern over location and the milieu of social, economic andpolitical forces that alter those landscapes. Interest in landscape has risenenormously in recent years (Muir 1999). Historians, archeologists, landscapearchitects, and especially geographers, drive this interest. How scholars approachlandscape is nearly as varied as the number of studies in the field. GeographersDaniels and Cosgrove (1988, 8) approach the study from a post-modernistperspective, arguing that "landscape seems less like a palimpsest whose 'real' or'authentic meanings can somehow be recovered with the correct techniques...[like] flickering text displayed on the word-processor screen whose meaning canbe created, extended, altered, elaborated and finally obliterated by the nearesttouch of a button." Rose (1992, 10) notes that in human geography, "pleasurein the landscape was often seen as a threat to the scientific gaze." Mitchell (1994,14) reminds us that "landscape is itself a physical and multi-sensory medium(earth, stone, vegetation, water, sky, sound and silence, light and darkness, etc.)in which cultural meanings and values are encoded."

Not all of geography's recent history celebrates the study of landscape.Richard Hartshorne's seminal work, The Nature of Geography (1939), rejectedlandscape as the central feature of geography because it derived from thenarrowly defined German term, Landschaft, meaning a "restricted piece of land."But since at least the mid-1980s, geographers who were disillusioned by thepositivist movement found a new theoretical space for the study of landscape:

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"gcographcrs have sought to reformulate landscape as a concept whose subjectiveand artistic resonances are to be actively embraced" (Cosgrove 1985, 45). Partof this reformulation stems from the recognition that landscapes are sociallyconstructed: "the study of landscapes offers "geographers a means of analyzingand organizing the surrounding material environment... [and for understanding]the relationship between landscapes and human beings" (Kobayashi 1989,165). All of these justifications (cf. Hartshorne 1939) underlay my interest inthe cultural heritage of specific Spanish American landscapes: centro histdrico,plaza, and barrio.

Heritage means using the past as an economic resource for the present.Historic districts and monuments allow countries to create national identity,forge ideologies and "ground" abstract notions of history and heritage in tangibleforms (Hobsbawm 1990; Hall 1995; Woolf 1996). The wish to preserve relics ofpast environments is often tied to influential elite. However, the tension createdover what is to be preserved, whose collective memory should be celebrated, isoften ignored in official public circles. A bewildering array of places and objectsdetermines what gets included in the web of historic preservation projects(Graham, Ashworth, and Turnbridge 2000).

The many forces that create these landscapes are not unique to either marketor centrally planned economies. For example, economic place images drivethe present construction boom in the United States. Walt Disney Corporationcreated Celebration, Florida - a planned community - as a theme to embrace thepre-automobile era that characterizes Disney's Main Street boulevard at DisneyWorld. Public demand in the United States is strong for neo-traditional designstructures such as Seaside, Florida and related projects of Andres Duany andElizabeth Plater-Zyberk of DBZ Associates (Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck2000). Not so many years ago, Eastern European, Soviet, and Cuban public

Figure IA and IB. Trinidad's main town square (Plaza Mayor, left) and Three CrossesSquare (Plaza Calvario or Plaza Tres Cruces, right) reflect the 'duality of heritage' idea. Just fiveblocks apart, the main square of Trinidad preserves a mid- to late nineteenth plaza in very goodstructural shape. The Palacio Brunet, the Architectural Museum, the Anthropological Museum,and an art gallery flank it. Tourists visit the town square because it displays the decorative artsand accoutrements of the mid-1800s that make heritage tourism so inviting. Yet, four blocks awayin Las Tres Cruces (The Three Crosses) neighborhood, there is another town square. A Holy Weekprocession through the town culminated in this unpaved town square (the Cuban leadership endedthe procession until 1998, thanks in part to the visit of Pope John Paul II). For the locals, this 'low'culture public space attracts more than ten thousand trinitarios on Good Friday and holds moremeaning than the main town square even though the latter brings in millions of dollars to Trinidad.

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Figure 2. The "sefora de la chalupa"symbolizes the street vendors' dilemma inPuebla and other historic centers. While many

pedestrians want her products (the chalupa,a corn tortilla served with meat or cheese andvarious chili or chocolate (poblana) sauces).Others, especially shopkeepers, object to theirnominal payment of taxes and fees, and their'cluttering up' of sidewalks and parks. Here,this vendor works next to a plaza in Puebla, justoff the sidewalk, in the entrance of a building.

housing brandished banal high-risehousing units to impose a stamp ofequality on all its citizens. In centrallyplanned economies, modest shelter,uniformity, and equality often takepriority over building aesthetics.

These problems highlight the'duality of heritage.' By the dualityof heritage, we can conceptualize

the Latin American centros histdricos sources of cultural and economic capital.Within cultural capital, we can differentiate 'high' and 'low' levels; the formerrefers to the major pubic buildings, cathedrals, town halls (cabildos), fortresses,jails, hospitals, convents, churches, and chosen monuments. As well, theremay be grand private residents (casonas, mansiones, palacios, casas-almacenes),usually European imports, but undoubtedly adapted and changed by Creolevernacular tastes (Segre 1994; Weiss 1950; Early 1994). Such edifices attractFirst World-tourists to Third World-heritage tourist destinations and profferpostcard backdrops of unique places. Niche marketing within globalizationtourism has carved out a place for heritage tourism.

The domain of 'low' cultural capital in the Latin American urban coreincludes a variety of vernacular architecture and public spaces other thanprincipal town squares. It may range from huts and cabins, small houses, mediumhouses, and even less-than-palatial large houses (Buisseret 1980, ch. 1). It alsoincludes corners of bona fide (nationally recognized historic districts) housesthat are close together, but not as well maintained, promoted, or frequented bytourists. Nonetheless, these secondary 'low' culture spaces serve important localfunctions (Figures la and 1b).

We know that the residential composition of most centros histdricos shiftedfrom an elite neighborhood to a mixture of upper-income with sprinkledconcentrations of poor (Griffin and Ford 1980; Gilbert 1994; Caplow 1949;Stanislawski 1950; London 1982). This same corpus of research suggests thattourism in the urban centers of most Latin American and Caribbean citiesnever figured as major source of land-use or economic development. For thetourist uninterested in witnessing penury, most abject urban poverty in the

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Latin American city becomes more 'disguised' than it does in North America.Chilean geographers have termed this more subtle urban squalor the pobrezadesfrazada (disguised poverty) (CED 1990). Behind the tall walls surroundingmany lots and city blocks, and within voluminous 19th and 20th centurystructures, lay a disenfranchised class that is out of view, and usually out ofthe urban policy realm. Unlike the ghetto found next to the Central BusinessDistrict in the United States, the penury of the centro histdrico cannot always beseen during a cursory stroll through its streets and alleys. 'Low' cultural capitalrarely makes it into the travel guides, web sites, and marketing brochures, yetis an important dimension of inner-city life. It is, moreover, on equal footingwith the growing number of street vendors who ply their trades on sidewalks,parks, and open spaces.

Class conflicts can simmer in historic districts in subtle ways. Authoritiesin Puebla, Mexico have determined that ambulate vendors (ambulantes) detractfrom the 'dignity' of the centro histdrico, the ambulantes may be banned altogetheror moved (Figure 2). "This ideological shift is found out in the built environmentand the use of public space in Puebla. Asserting the past, drawing parallelswith a 'golden age,' serves to evaluate Puebla's profile in national consciousness(note award of UNESCO recognition before Mexico City)" (Jones and Varley1994; Conner 1999). These tensions point out the potential tax-base historicpreservation, which can build and raise questions about whose heritage andwhose past is being preserved

A second dimension of the duality of heritage entails economic capital. Thisrefers to the 'consumption' of culture through museums, art galleries, andarchitectural appreciation. Taken at its broadest level, some analyst's claimthat all buildings are historic and are economic capital until proven otherwise(Morton 1992; Lash and Urry 1994; Douglas and Isherwood 1979; Ewen1988). In Europe, the task of serving this economic capital to the public fallsto ministries of culture or quasi-nongovernmental organizations (QUANGOs)such as national trusts. Economic capital used in heritage tourism includes re-enactments of the past. These events have become popular on both sides of theNorth Atlantic, ranging from Colonial Williamsburg (USA) and showing thelife of a daily colonial town, to the operation of feudal and medieval villagesof the Old World. Because the authenticity is suspect and tends to be elitist(slaves and serfs are never deprecated, raped, or beaten), re-enactments of thepast are "largely a pastiche with no higher purpose than popular entertainment"(Graham, Ashworth and Turnbridge, 2000, 222).

In Havana at Cuba's World Heritage Site of La Cabafia Fortress, one canexperience a re-enactment of the closing of the gates to the walled city and tohear the cannon blast (el cafionazo). Soldiers don wigs and colonial garb forthe 18th century ceremony as they march from the barracks to the cannonoverlooking Habana Vieja. At $5.00 USD per person (versus 25 cents USD orfive Cuban pesos for locals), it steadily feeds the public till. La Cabafia, though,was also where the revolutionary tribunals under the charge of Ernesto 'Che'

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Guevara judged the hcnchmen of Cuban dictatator Fulgencio Batista (1952-58).Many of the accused were jailed and executed there. The same fortress was ajail for homosexuals, 'counter-revolutionaries,' and other politically incorrectpersons as portrayed in the autobiographical book, Before Night Falls (Antes deque Anochezca) by the late exiled writer Reinaldo Arenas (and the basis of theJulian Schnabel-directed film of the same name). However, sorting out historicalmeanings for a single building or public space is a complex task and is often illsuited to government agencies.

This example of La Cabafia brings into focus the GTer versus HTerexperience. Given Cuba's relative isolation from the American travel market(except for select religious or long-term academic travel), the entire complexexemplifies the niche-marketing aspect of heritage tourism. However, shouldthe trade and travel embargo suddenly end, La Cabafia canon ceremony mightbecome as commonplace as the fireworks that highlight Disney World eachevening at 9 p.m. in Orlando, Florida. The Cuban Ministry of Culture believesit is more remunerative to present 'high-brow' aspects of earlier landscapes thanplebian or 'dark' venues. While the historical accuracy of these and similarevents may be secondary to the scenery, they are visually striking spectaclesthat attract audiences. This is not to suggest that low economic capital eventsin Latin America are simply the result of backwardness, underdevelopment, orLatin American culture. For example, Vilagrasa and Larkham (1995) highlightthis uneasiness between high and low culture in their study of Worcester, oneof Britain's 'historic towns.' Worcester's "historic core consists of several pseudo-Georgian structures superficially resembling the predominant character.. .butby default rather than by conscious planning decision" (Vilagrasa and Larkham1995, 170). Summing up, despite the veracity or debate that determines whatis built and what is restored, there is a growing tourism market that seeks theseplaces (Tung 2001; Serageldin, Shluger, and Martin-Brown 2001).

The nation-state and municipal governments are, at best, willing accomplicesin promoting change in their centros histdricos. Simply stated, local authorities dolittle to enhance residential buildings either through direct repair, subsidies, ortax incentives. Rather, public efforts go to promoting tourism and commercialenterprises of all sizes. Many of these enterprises are internal, and thoughglobalization is somewhat imprecise, it remains a useful conceptual tool inunderstanding the nuances of how transnational processes impact at the locallevel. For example, how does the French hotel chain Sofitel retrofit the Santa ClaraConvent in Cartagena and demonstrate its relationship with the centro histdrico atthe local level, and its allegiance to international capital (Scarpaci 2000a)? Whatare the restrictions that international capital indirectly imposes on tourist workerswho labor in Habana Vieja's tourist industry (Scarpaci 2000b)? These tensionshighlight the need for a global and theoretically informed perspective that connectsthe centro histdrico to local, municipal, national, and international factors. It alsosuggests that the consumer choices available to HTers are highly segmented andare subject to numerous choices in a dizzying area of tourist destinations.

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Finally, we should remember that not all heritage tourism is widely accepted,nor are all culturally valuable spaces and monuments always appreciated. InAfghanistan in 2001, the militant Taliban forces in power destroyed pricelessBuddhist cliff statues because they found the objects an affront to Islam and theQ'uran. The Taliban threatened the destruction for weeks, and that provokedinternational outrage, especially since the Japanese government offered to removethem and bring them to Japan. UNESCO officials also pleaded because theartworks earned World Heritage status, but it was all to no avail. Their destructionwas a harbinger of the madness the Taliban helped unleash on September 11,2001. In the Americas, slave quarters in Brazil and Cuba are controversial whenpreservationists try to restore them. Does restoration herald the dominant culture,victimize the enslaved people, or faithfully recreate history? In recent decades,we have seen how war destroys heritage sites, especially along the Iranian andIraqi border during the 1980s even though both nations were Muslim (Broadway1999). Therefore, consensus on identifying and safeguarding heritage sites isproblematic, rife with tensions that defy facile interpretations.

Latin American tourism has long been a major source of economicdevelopment and although data are difficult to obtain, it appears that HTersform a small subset of the larger tourist industry. Perhaps as much as a halftrillion dollars is generated by tourism in Latin America and the Caribbeanif we use the $476 billion U.S. dollars spent in 2000 as a benchmark. Theserevenues were generated by 689 million international tourists to the region (Jafari2002). Many nations in the region realize that if cultural and economic needs

Dynamic Tourism Demand Trends(Source: Buhalis 2000, p. 70)

Sea, Sun

Sand Sea

Sangria

Technology Segmentation

E cology SpecializationEnter-tainmen Environment m- Sophistication

SatisfactionMulti-cultural Seduction

Sightseeing

Shopping

Short Break

Shows

Scotch Whiskey

Figure 3.

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arc taken into account, tourism can contribute substantially towards social andeconomic development.

Recently, a few countries registered higher than annual growth rates ofinternational tourist arrivals. Central American destinations, including Belizeand Panama, witnessed a remarkable growth rate of 13% between 1995 and2000; nearly four times the world average. The Dominican Republic and Cubaexperienced more than one million arrivals and had growth rates of 18 and11%, respectively. In 2001, the First Ibero-American Tourism Summit in Cuzco,Peru gave tourism a priority role in economic development programs. A joint

Dynamic Heritage Tourism Demand TrendsApplied to Spanish American Centros Hist6ricos

(Source: Modilied.from Buhalis 2000, p. 70)

Benign

Climate Segmentation(heritage)

Specialization

Technology (architecture)

Eu cySophisticationEdu- •,cology :". (eladetd:Ente-taimen Envionmnt ____(well-educatedEnter-tainmen Enronment Western tourists)

S\ / • ="SatisfactionMulti-cultural (desandin/• ~(demanding ,

'high' culture

Sightseeing urban attributes

Shopping Seduction(alternatives

Short Break to modern

Cultural Shows MetropoiiS))

Figure 4.

declaration, The Cuzco Commitment, stated that tourism could provide an edgeagainst poverty, especially when indigenous and cultural elements factor intotourist programs (Franginalli 2002, 2). All this bodes well for re-examining therole of heritage tourism in the historic Spanish American neighborhood.

Buhalis (2000) has shown how dynamic tourism demand trends derive fromglobalization and pose both challenges and opportunities (Figure 3). Appliedto the Latin American centro histdrico, we see that these old corners of the LatinAmerican city afford specialized, segmented, and seductive amenities that drawinternational tourists to them (Figure 4). While the challenges remain aboutteasing out 'high' from 'low' culture, and 'authentic' from 'artificial' heritageelements, the potential for this niche marketing is formidable.

There is good evidence that most Americans may not be that interestedin unique consumer experiences. De Graaf et al. (2002) are part of a growing

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group of scholars who documented the rise in consumerism in the UnitedStates (see also (Schor 1999). In Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, DeGraaf et al. define the current affliction of America's affluenza as "a painful,contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, andwaste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more" (De Graaf et al 2000, n.p.).The need for discerning inimitable place destinations may also be moot as theauthors note:

Middle-income Americans seldom ventured more than a few hundredmiles from home [half-century ago], even during two-week summervacations. Now, many of us (not just the rich) expect to spend occasionallong-weekends in Puerto Vallarta, or (in the case of New Yorkers) in Paris.Everywhere, humble motels have been replaced by elegant "inns," humbleresorts by Club Meds" (De Graafet al 2002, 28).

Based on the attributes of Latin American historic quarters, coupled withproximity to the U.S. market, we should anticipate greater differentiation amongGTers and HTers in the years ahead.

ConclusionsHeritage tourism focused on the Latin American centro historico that serves

as what Leiss, Kline and Jhally (1986) call a 'lifestyle within modern consumerculture.' These historic corners offer visual dimensions that afford a uniquepublic gaze into the American tourist. Conceptualized as a sort of 'open airmuseum,' these historic corners of the Latin American city do not requireextensive historical contexts so that the visitor can interpret them (Mills 2003).Garrisons, ramparts, cathedrals, plazas, and barrios unfold as one walks throughthem at a pedestrian-friendly pace (Scarpaci 2005). International travel in theindustrial nations of the 'north' has increasingly brought remote destinationsof Africa, Asia, and Latin America into the consumer's reach.

This paper has discussed two distinct consumer populations. Globalizationtourists (GTers) include those who want predictable and secure destinations.

A plethora of international hotel and resort chains operate large, oceanfrontproperties catering to these needs. Another second, but growing consumer group,desires cultural features that make up smaller corners of Latin American townsand cities. These heritage tourists (HTers) are often associated with ranks ofElderhostel travelers, university students, and others with a vested interest incultural preservation. To show how such travel is segmented, I reinterpreted amodel posted by Buhalis (2000) that segments the GTer from the HTer. While thelatter is relatively small in comparison, it is likely to afford an alternative setting asglobalization homogenizes the tourists' spaces of the world's growing leisure class.Even though heritage tourism displays an unproblematic interpretation of thepast, many consumers may be unaware of the polemics attached to how historiclandscapes are packaged for consumption, nor does it matter about whose memoryof the Latin American historic district is being preserved. American consumers,due to proximity and relative cost, will likely continue to seek out heritage tourism

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in Latin America and the Caribbean - particularly in the centro hist6rico - preciselybecause their landscapes and venues are just a bit less predictable than the 'sun n'

surf' venues that globalization tourism so aggressively promotes.

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TITLE: Globalization Tourists and Heritage Tourists in AmericanCulture: The Case of Latin American Historic Districts

SOURCE: Mater Cult 39 no2 Fall 2007

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