Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Turismo y militarización del espacio público. Tendencias actuales en la gestión de centros históricos

2016; University of Almería; Volume: 6; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

2014-2714

Noelia Ávila Delgado,

Urbanism, Landscape, and Tourism Studies

The purpose of this brief essay is to show the relationship between tourism and militarization of public space, starting out from the principle that this economic activity appears at present as a cross-cutting element which exerts more force in management policies called “historic centers”, all within the framework of the race for competitiveness and the demand for security, central elements of publicity and tourist marketing strategies. I suggest that, under the protection of tourism, historic centers are becoming guarded, highly normativized spaces, and in Mexico, spaces more and more militarized. The empirical references are supported by the case study of the historic center of Oaxaca, which is currently undergoing a trend toward militarization, which is expressed in the constant performance of police-military “vacation” operations at different times of the year because of the arrival of tourists.