Tourism Dynamics in Peru: Cultural Impacts and Economic Considerations

A. Brown 1 Annotated Bibliography Smith, J. S., & Hurt, D. A. (2011). Roads Less Traveled: Emerging Tourism in Peru. Focus on Geography, 11–23. DOI:10.1111/j.1949-8535.2010.00021 Featured in the academic journal, Focus on Geography , authors Smith and Hurt provide a concise overview of the main tourist destinations in Peru and the impacts of their annual visitors on the region economically and culturally. According to the article the majority of tourists who visit the nation only visit three cities/sites: Lima, Cusco, and Machu Picchu. Lima is the only city in the nation with an international airport so all tourists pass through the city, most only in the airport on their way to Cusco. Due to growing concerns of permits and these sites struggling to keep up with the demand of tourists, Peru’s tourism companies and UNESCO are encouraged tourists to visit places off of the beaten path such as the Nazca lines or the Vinicunca “rainbow mountain” in regions that do see as many visitors annually. The article then goes into detail about how the population of Peru is distributed through city populations and settlements of Quechua peoples and how that culturally impacts the tourism industry. Zoomers, A. (2008). Global Travelling Along the Inca Route: Is International Tourism Beneficial for Local Development? European Planning Studies, 971–983. DOI:10.1080/09654310802163769 From the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, Professor Zoomers examines the different cultural ideas of tourism on Quechua populations in the Sacred Valley. The author explains the ambiguous term of what an “Andean” individual is, and how this term is not used by locals but only by outsiders and tourists in the region, according to the A. Brown 2 author in this region the populations refer to themselves as “peasants” or “indigenous” not Andean. He also examines how Indegenous populations are presented to tourists: “ … advertising focuses on the bright, smiling and colourful side of life, in the process presenting a version of Andean culture frozen in time and divorced from real life” (972). Throughout the rest of the journal Zoomers explores the cultural, socio-economic, and political ramifications that tourism has had on Peru. The author also examines how the Quechua and indigenous populations view wealth and reciprocity in their culture and how they changed with external influences: “ … southern Andes of Peru, people stress the word was hardly heard until 1990, when the concept—together with a “map of poverty”—was introduced by NGOs” (178). Rice, M. (2017). Good Neighbors and Lost Cities. Radical History Review, 2017, 51–73. DOI: 10.1215/01636545-3920679 Published by Duke University Press, Rice focuses on the impacts cultural and site-oriented tourism has had specifically on Machu Picchu. The author establishes the historical background of the site with Hirham Bingham and the impacts of the “goodneighbor policy” the United States and Peru were working towards. Rice makes note of Bingham's opinions on the indigenous populations: “[Peruvians] have no consuming curios- ity about the past. Accordingly they were suspicious of our undertaking and their efforts, I assure you, were far from helpful” (54). This opinion that Bingham shared about the Peruvians culturally impacted how they were viewed for some time from the United States. The rest of the article continues to build on how development and further research on Machu Picchu has attracted more tourists. He further examines the impacts A. Brown 3 environmentally and socially that the boost in visitors caused for not only the site itself, but the entire nation. Llorca-Rodríguez, C. M., Casas-Jurado, A. C., & García-Fernández, R. M. (2017). Tourism and Poverty Alleviation: An empirical analysis using panel data on Peru’s departments. International Journal of Tourism Research, 746–756. DOI: 10.1002/jtr.2147 Casado, M. A. (1998). Peru’s Tourism Industry. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 39(1), 68–73. DOI: 10.1177/001088049803900110