Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The problem of tourism and urban transformations began to be problematized in academic studies in the 90s. As a result the changes in the offerings and in tourist demands resulted in a sharp increase in activity and impact on cities. Generally positioned from the supply side, studies have focused on highlighting how actions aimed at making cities competitive in the international tourism market, addressing urban renewal and patrimonialization projects, development of iconic architectural pieces, and creation of economic and cultural districts, among others, have contributed to the creation of newly themed tourist destinations. This has resulted in the consequent expulsion of activities and traditional users. Incipiently new studies are emerging that show how the demand of tourists and residents, reflected in their habits and consumer trends, also affect the conformation of urban tourism products. There is a tension between the resources of cities to compete in the international tourism market and the suppression of the cultural, social, and economic limits that the development of globalization implies. However, in the context of the tension generated between differentiation, we must ask ourselves what model of the tourist city tends to build urban promotion actions driven from the public sphere and consumer spaces immersed in fashions and market trends. In this sense, this paper analyzes the promotion of the city of Buenos Aires as an urban tourist destination with unique characteristics, in opposition to the spatial standardization derived from the market dynamics, especially associated with the consumption spaces (commercial and services) and of the strategies of conditioning and spatial renovation faced from the public sphere. Actions tend to reproduce fragments of emblematic urban tourism destinations and to generate new forms of cultural commodification as an economic strategy. The work’s methodology is based on the comparative study of the Buenos Aires city case with international antecedents (identified as paradigms of new urban tourist destinations) analyzing, in turn, local tourist guides, journalistic sources, laws, and international agreements. Among the results obtained, it is evident how the logics of governance and the urban policies of the local government tend to produce a model of urban tourist destination composed of elements similar to those of other cities worldwide.