SOLIDARY TOURISM AND EMPOWERING: THE CASE OF EK BALAM, YUCATÁN, MÉXICO

Abstract

Recently, public policies lead to focus on tourism as one of the ways to attain development in rural communities. Various social organizations have identified this policy and consider it a way of diversifying their economic activities with a special focus on the use of natural resources with tourism aims. With regard to the different types of tourism, from the conventional or massive concept in contrast with alternative tourism as well as other forms of tourism, such as sustainable, responsible and solidary tourism, in this contribution we show how in the Yucatan Peninsula the product of solidary tourism promoted by the TDS Civil Association, based on collective initiatives, has allowed social, political and cultural empowering of the Maya indigenous community of Ek-Balam, through a rural tourism project.