From Horses to Tour Buses: The Effects of Tourism on Ollantaytambo, Peru
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Date
2014-05
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Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
Many researchers are interested in the effects of tourism on local culture. Nevertheless, few have taken into account the perspectives of expats who are part of the tourism industry. My study focuses on the way expats understand, participate in, and explain tourism and its outcomes in the Peruvian town of Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley of the Inca in the Andes Mountains. My methods include ethnographic fieldwork, specifically observation and open-ended interviews with non-local residents who speak English and Spanish. This research has shown that non-local Ollantaytambo inhabitants believe that tourism has changed the local economy in both positive and problematic ways and contributed to the problems of vehicular traffic and trash accumulation. In addition, non-local Ollantaytambo residents consider tourism to have heightened social differences in the region, specifically between tourists and locals, between expats and locals, and between Ollantaytambo and nearby communities.
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Keywords
Tourism, Andes, South America, Social Tension