RESIDENT SATISFACTION WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOURIST ACTIVITY IN THE MAGICAL TOWNS OF MEXICO: AN INDICATOR OF COMPTETITIVENESS. THE CASES OF COMALA, COLIMA AND REAL DE ASIENTOS, AGUASCALIENTES

Abstract

In recent years, tourism has been stimulated in several places of Mexico, seeking to become the engine of regional socioeconomic development. One example is the "Magic Towns of Mexico" led by the Ministry of Tourism (SECTUR), with which it is sought to structure a complementary and diversified tourism and exploit the uniqueness of the locations by the provision of differentiated tourism products.
However, tourism can help to generate social and cultural changes in their host countries, so this work presents an approach to determine whether residents of two destinations that are part of the Magic Towns are satisfied with tourist activity, and makes a comparative analysis which allows to measure the relationship between the stimulation to tourism development and the extent to which the tourism industry satisfies the recipient population.
The social and cultural impacts are usually difficult to assess, therefore, the present study is based on the residents’ perception on the effects of tourism in their community. This study has been developed taking into account the satisfaction of residents with the environmental, social and economic dimension, through four or five reactants for each dimension of a survey using a Likert-type scale.