Turismo y Patrimonio en la Quebrada de Humahuaca. Lugar, actores y conflictos en la definición de un destino turístico: Claudia Troncoso. Tenerife: Pasos Edita (2012)

Maximiliano Emanuel Korstanje
2015 PASOS Revista de Turismo y Patrimonio Cultural  
Following the financial collapse of 2001, Argentina experienced a rapid boost in its economy. In this process, tourism plays a vital role as a strategic unit of business for generating valid incomes to local economies. This was the case for the Quebrada de Humahuaca, small town situated in the province of Jujuy, Argentina. La Quebrada is one of the most beautiful attractions of the country, and received recently the designation of heritage site by UNESCO. As this backdrop, Claudia Troncoso
more » ... nts her book Turismo y Patrimonio en la Quebrada de Humahuaca, edited by Pasos, Spain, as a valuable platform to discuss the connection of patrimony, heritage and globalization to create tourist destinations. Some spaces are commoditized others are undermined. She argues convincingly that tourism growth, since the XXth century, has been on the agenda of the Argentine government simply because it represents a fertile ground for fresh incomes. The book is formed by seven chapters which explore not only the consequences of tourism in local communities, like the Quebrada de Huamahuaca, but the practices and behaviors these places generate. What this book discusses is to what an extent the concept of patrimony delineates the attractiveness of places, while ignoring others. Methodically speaking, the research is based on a combination of primary and secondary sources, which ranges from documents produced by tourism related organizations, towards solid statistics respecting to the tourism promotion. Additionally, journals, newspapers and other sources are used to guide the investigation of the research's fieldwork. The gap generated by the lack of information was fulfilled by personal interviews to key persons between 2007 and 2009. Chapter 1 is fully dedicated to understand how tourist attractiveness is constructed. Though at some extent, heritage confers certain value to territory, Troncoso adds, local stakeholders change their own behavior adopting a new identity according to that imposed heritage. Chapter 2 is a description of Quebrada de Humahuaca and its diverse patrimonial characteristics. This is the weakest chapter of the
doi:10.25145/j.pasos.2015.13.031 fatcat:s55u54s2czczdnrvamc5fby3zy