Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist Encounters (review)

Romantic ideas of Mexican tourism conjure images of sun, sand, antiquity, heritage, and ecotourism. Simultaneously, imagery of Mexico in the mainstream American touristic imagination is conflated with historically conflictive geopolitical relations between these bordering lands. In the book Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist Encounters, editors Dina Berger and Andrew Grant Wood bring together an eclectic collection of scholarship by historians, anthropologists, and Mexican studies scholars covering a range of topics about tourism in Mexico and critically situating the role of American tourists as guests abroad.

Given the enormity of tourism’s impact on the Mexican economy, this volume represents a timely contribution to an under-researched topic. Tourism accounts for 8 percent of the country’s GDP and contributes to 5.7 percent of the country’s employment. One important difference in the Mexican case, compared with tourism elsewhere, is that the Mexican government actively fueled this industry by taking a state-led approach in many development efforts.

These economic conditions have been shaped by a long history of tourism policies in Mexico. Using a chronological framework, the editors assemble a unique collection of chapters that review pieces of Mexico’s tourism history, concluding with some analysis of the contemporary era. The first two chapters in the book cover early tourism, dating from the Mexican–American war to the Mexican revolution, ca. 1846–1911. Young American soldiers in Mexico were among the earliest to craft touristlike representations of Mexico through their letters home, according to Andrea Boardman in the lead chapter. The strategic site planning behind the excavation of the archaeological site Teotihuacan in the Porfirian era, detailed by Christina Bueno, gave birth to ideas about preconquest antiquity, creating new national dialogues about Mexican racialized identities. Drawing on archival data, this chapter also includes a fascinating account of Mexican archaeological reproductions as early souvenirs.

The second period covered by the book includes postrevolutionary developments, ca. 1920–1960. Andrew Grant Wood weaves the changing history of the Veracruz port’s diseased reputation as it morphed into the site of the much celebrated Carnival, a pre-Lenten festival. Historian Dina Berger describes how tourism served as a proxy for diplomatic relations to build cross-national understanding and bridge gaps of difference among Mexican hosts and foreign guests. Eric Schantz narrates a compelling political–economic history of contentious casino activities along the Mexican–American border.

Riddled with parallels to contemporary tourism development sites in Mexico, Andrew Sackett’s enticing chapter describes the transformation of Acapulco into a major destination by framing a context of uneven power relations between poor local residents and tourism proponents. Studying the unusual case of San Miguel Allende, Lisa Pinley Covert examines the competing interests involved as the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes attracted artists and intellectuals that later drew tourists seeking a different type of experience. As a result, San Miguel developed as an alternative to conventional tourism and today is touted for its cultural patrimony and heritage.

The third section documents “contemporary articulations,” ca. 1960 to present and certainly leaves the reader wanting more given how dramatically tourism has changed in the last thirty years. In Jeffrey Pilcher’s chapter, we receive an understanding of tourism through ethnic adventures in gastronomy by looking at historical trends of how Mexican foods developed on the American palate. M. Bianet Castellanos uses ethnographic research to analyze indigenous migration and tourism in the Yucatán. She explores how residents blend their livelihoods as community members together with labor in the service construction economy and interrogates how these sustain each other.

Mary K. Coffey’s art history chapter examines the Great Masters exhibition of Mexican folk art in the United States in the context of Citigroup’s corporate buyout of Banamex. She raises questions about the globalization of art, perceptions, and consumption...