Holiday in Mexico

With its archaeological sites, colonial architecture, pristine beaches, and alluring cities, Mexico has long been an attractive destination for travellers. The tourist industry ranks third in contributions to Mexico's gross domestic product, and provides more than 5 percent of total employment nationwide. "Holiday in Mexico" takes a broad historical and geographical look at Mexico, covering a range of tourist destinations from Tijuana and Acapulco, and the development of tourism from the 1840s to the present day. Essays by scholars in a variety of fields offer a complex and critical view of tourism in Mexico by examining its origins, promoters, and participants. Essays include research on proto-tourist American soldiers of the mid-nineteenth century, archaeologists who excavated Teotihuacan, porteno business owners who marketed Carnival in 1920s Veracruz, American tourists in Mexico City who promoted goodwill during World War II, American retirees who settled San Miguel de Allende, restaurateurs who created an 'authentic' cuisine of Central Mexico, indigenous market vendors of Oaxaca who shaped the local tourist identity, Mayan service workers who migrated to work in Cancun hotels, and local officials who vied to develop the next 'it' spot in Tijuana and Cabo San Lucas. This volume comprises cutting-edge studies on food, labour, art, diplomacy, business, and politics to illuminate the many processes and individuals that comprise the tourism industry. Holiday in Mexico shows tourism as a complicated set of interactions and outcomes that reveal much about the nature of economic, social, cultural, and environmental change in Greater Mexico over the past two centuries. Contributors include: Dina Berger; Andrea Bordman; Christina Bueno; M. Bianet Castellanos; Mary K. Coffey; Lisa Pinley Covert; Barbara Kastelein; Jeffrey Pilcher; Andrew Sackett; Alex Saragoza; Eric M. Schantz; and Andrew Grant Wood.