Housing development and residential tourism: the case of Mexico

Abstract

Second home tourism has not been significantly analyzed in Mexico. Even with a share of temporary houses much lower than in European countries, it represents an important market. The housing types used for second home are various, with special focus on individual house produced directly by the owner. As a consequence of the modernization of the building sector, the social and territorial flexibility of housing loans, the participation of developers has increased in the second home production, particularly in the main touristic destinations as Cancún and Acapulco. This implies a strong increase of the offer, its geographical concentration, but possibly as the most important, a radical shift from a model of second home tourism oriented by imaginaries of individuality, tranquility and distance from metropolitan life, to a model of stronger densities, consumism, and lost of the sensation of evasion and rest.