Residential tourism and depeasantisation in the Ecuadorian Andes

Abstract

International residential tourism is a recent phenomenon in the Andean area. However, in places where it has been established, rapid changes in social and economic structures have occurred. The Municipality of Cotacachi (Northern Ecuador) is paradigmatic. Having become a destination for American retirees, residential tourism has generated a sharp increase in the price of rural land and has decelerated a land market that once allowed young farmers to continue agricultural activities. Residential tourism has promoted land exchange value while sacrificing use value, threatening peasant reproduction mechanisms.

Keywords:

• residential tourism
• lifestyle migration
• peasant reproduction
• depeasantisation
• Andes
• Ecuador

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Ernest Cañada from AlbaSud, Luis Grijalva from UNORCAC and Montse Ayats from the Xarxa de Consum Solidari for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹In Ecuador, the canton is an administrative–territorial entity in a municipal area that includes diverse populations or parishes.

²This process resulted in the production of prestigious international awards, such as the Dubai International Award for Best Practices in 2000, awarded by United Nations - Habitat, and the City of Peace Award in 2002, awarded by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

³See the Intaq Ecotourist Network website (Red Ecoturística Intag n.d.), which lists tourism proposals for the Catacachi subtropics.

⁴See the forum ‘Recent exodus of gringo expats living in Cotacachi', on the TripAdvisor website (TripAdvisor 2010).

⁵Data obtained from the Gobierno Autónomo Descentralizado (GAD) of Santa Ana de Cotacachi – Appraisals and Registry Office (2014a, 2014b).

⁶Information obtained from Internet forums and through interviews with building developers in Cotacachi.

⁷In agreement with the municipality, the canton was registered within a statewide program of the Ministry of Agriculture in 2014.

⁸Data from the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC – Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censo of Ecuador. n.d).

⁹Data were obtained through interviews with real estate agents in Cotacachi and through undeveloped land retail price monitoring. Land increases, however, are not constant: they depend on the location of the property, its distance from the town of Santa Ana de Cotacachi, access (or accessibility) to basic services, etc.

¹⁰The Andean region in which the canton is situated suffers from water stress due to irrigation development, population growth and the disappearance of glaciers that previously fed local aquifers (Rhoades, Zapata, and Aragundy 2006; VanderMolen 2011).

Additional information

Funding

This research was sponsored by the Prometheus Project of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (Secretaría de Educación Superior, Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación – SENESCYT) of the Republic of Ecuador.

Notes on contributors

Jordi Gascón

Jordi Gascón holds a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Barcelona, with a focus in rural studies. His research focuses on tourism as a tool for cooperation and the effects of tourism on the rural world and on agricultural policies in Latin America. He is a researcher at the Institute of Advanced National Studies (Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales – IAEN) of Ecuador.