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.
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 Citationn.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 Citation2010).
5Data obtained from the Gobierno Autónomo Descentralizado (GAD) of Santa Ana de Cotacachi – Appraisals and Registry Office (Citation2014a, Citation2014b).
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 Citation2006; VanderMolen Citation2011).
Additional information
Funding
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.