Heritage tourism clusters along the borders of Mexico

Abstract

This article seeks to find potential heritage tourism clusters in border areas. Literature about tourism destinations is essentially focused on administrative-bound areas, while little attention has been paid to functional regions. The research is based on a methodological exercise to contribute to this debate by analyzing the case of three border regions between Mexico, the USA, Guatemala and Belize, respectively. These borders have never been static but have changed throughout history, to the present day situation. It is argued that these changes have implications for the potential development of heritage tourism. The results identify a number of cross-border clusters and corridors in these areas with different levels of tourism underdevelopment, mainly because of political or legal restrictions. The results of this study contribute to an improved understanding of borderland heritages and cross-border regional clusters in the context of tourism.

Keywords:

• heritage
• border
• functional areas
• corridors
• distance
• cluster analysis
• spatial patterns
• cross-border regions

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the valuable contributions of Dr Tomás Cuevas Contreras (Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez), Dr Domingo Gómez López (Universidad Intercultural de Chiapas) and Dr Rafael Romero Mayo (Universidad de Quintana Roo), who offered important contributions and assistance to the field work.