Tourism on the Latin American public agenda: how did we get here?

ERICA SCHENKEL

#TourismPostCOVID19 LOCKDOWN TOURISTIFICATION

Alba Sud Editorial

Lugar: Barcelona; Año: 2021; p. 109 - 116

The expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic has made evident the high vulnerability of the tourism model to which the design of our sectoral policies has led for decades. International flows are falling at an unprecedented rate and it is not expected to recover in the medium term. With this situation, it is essential to collectively build a critical analysis that attempts to explain: How did we get here? What kind of development model did our sectoral policies aim at? For what purposes? We are in a moment where there is a demand for tourism policies capable of curbing the crisis, or at least effective enough to counteract it. I believe that, in the first place, it is necessary to answerthe questions that we propound here. If we are unable to identify the causes of the problem, it will be very difficult to build overcoming strategies and not to repeat the same mistakes done in the past. The article delves into the role of the State. An actor who, after decades, is revalued in public discussion and, particularly, in tourism, to achieve the desired economic reactivation. Now, which tourism to support? And which tourism actors?