TOURISM

Several events set the stage for modern Mexican tourism. U. S. tourists eventually realized that Mexico was no longer under the sway of bandoleer-clad revolutionaries or Marxist presidents who expropriated U. S. property. The Second World War favored Mexican tourism, since the war closed Europe to those with travel lust, and Mexico provided Americans with an opportunity to escape ration books.50

After the Second World War, increased highway mileage, the elimination of malaria, and U. S. affluence led large numbers of students, teachers, artists, and retirees to visit Mexico. The number of hotel rooms in Mexico doubled between 1954 and 1962. After 1959, the Cuban Revolution caused many who would have otherwise have visited Cuba to divert to Mexico. In the 1960s, improved communications and the availability of cheap airfares on jet aircraft led to the arrival of still more tourists.51

Heritage sites, both pre-Columbian and colonial, were specifically prepared to attract tourists. Pre-Columbian sites included Monte Alban in Oaxaca, Teotihuacan near Mexico City, and various Mayan sites in Yucatan. Colonial sites included Taxco, Guanajuato, and Mexico City’s central historical distinct. Handicraft production and Mexico’s world-renowned Ballet Folklorico linked tourism with Mexico’s contemporary indigenous cultures. In 1964, to highlight both Mexico’s preColumbian heritage as well as contemporary ethnographic material, the National Anthropological Museum opened in Mexico City’s Chapultepec Park. Historian Brian Hamnett described the museum as “so magnificent in its contemporary form and location that it could be described as a wonder of the modern world.”52

Tourism was one of the Mexican government’s greatest postwar development successes. The individual most closely associated with developing tourism is Miguel Aleman, who not only promoted tourism as president, 1946—1952, but served as director general of the National Tourism Commission between 1958 and 1983. In 1961, the Department of Tourism was established as an autonomous government agency to promote tourism. In 1971, it had a budget of just over $7.4 million dollars. Government tourism development faced a twin challenge—continuing infrastructure development to handle the ever increasing number of foreign tourists and making Mexican tourism attractive to Mexicans so they would not deplete scarce foreign exchange by traveling abroad.53

Between 1950 and 1972, foreign tourism increased at an annual rate of 12 percent, roughly double that of the economy as a whole. In 1972, receipts from foreign tourism totaled $1.7 billion, more than total merchandise exports. That year Mexico received almost 2 million tourists, nearly half the Latin American total. In 1965, 208,000 were employed directly in providing services to foreign tourists and in addition an estimated 1 million families were at least partially employed in supplying handicrafts for sale to tourists.54