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Tourism Implementation, an Issue of Territoriality: National Approach and Local Action Methods and Resources

Study of the Colombian Municipalities of La Mesa (Cundinamarca) and Villavieja (Huila)
Amanda Andrade Benítez
Traduction de Université Bretagne Occidentale
Cet article est une traduction de :
Instaurar el turismo, un asunto de territorialidad: lógicas nacionales, modos y medios de acción local [es]
Autre(s) traduction(s) de cet article :
Istituire il turismo, una questione di territorialità: logiche nazionali, modi e mezzi dell’azione locale. Uno studio dei comuni colombiani di La Mesa (Cundinamarca) e Villavieja (Huila) [it]

Résumé

This article analyses the tourism implementation process in two Colombian municipalities, La Mesa (Cundinamarca) and Villavieja (Huila), based on a two-tier observation at national and local levels. First, we review how territorial public action is implemented to develop tourism (Négrier 2007; Duran 2011) at a national level by the most important stakeholder involved, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT). This involves examining how this government body intervenes in sub-national authorities, based on the decentralisation and planning policy for tourist activity. At a local level, we address the specific dynamics in both municipalities and the progress they have made in implementing the national tourism policy. This two-tier observation reveals tensions between the national facilitators’ view on what needs to be done and local facilitators’ view on what can be done. We highlight the major local challenges this activity involves, in terms of administration and management in the municipalities, and also considerations linked to the construction of territoriality (Sack 1986; Raffestin 1982) and territory, which are crucial for the process in question.

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Introduction

1Tatacoa Desert, known as an exceptional place for stargazing in Colombia, hosted the 2nd Astro-Tourism Festival from 10 to 12 November 2017. This event in Villavieja (Huila Department) might have gone unnoticed if its promotion and success (it attracted over 5,000 tourists to a municipality with only 7,500 inhabitants) did not reflect the dilemma many Colombian localities are now facing: create a new basis for economic exploitation by becoming a tourist destination, or continue with a rural economy system that in many cases is subsistence.

  • 1 By way of example San Andrés, Cartagena, Santa Marta and Amazonas. Since the late 1990s, parks and (...)

2Although some regions in Colombia have enjoyed a tradition of tourism,1 current interest in this activity stems from a new wave of ventures that is taking hold in the agenda for peace. In keeping with the national development plan in force at that time (2014–2018), the MINCIT gave the tourism sector the role of being a “tool for territories in the process of transforming towards a culture of peace”, thereby signifying that municipalities must achieve profound local changes.

  • 2 Loose translation of “Mise en Tourisme: Processus de création d’un lieu touristique ou de subversio (...)

3Establishing tourism sites and making them attractive involves an implementation process defined as a “creation of a tourism site or alteration of an old site by tourism that results in a tourism site status” (Géoconfluences),2 whose main characteristic is voluntary planning of the space (Dewailly 2005) by considering not only natural but also historical and social conditions (Raffestin 2012, p. 58). Their development is closely related to how facilitators build the site or allow it to be built (ibid.), thereby involving the relationship they establish with the space and between themselves (Raffestin 1986).

4Based on this perspective, this paper considers the implementation of this process in the Colombian municipalities of Villavieja (Huila Department) and La Mesa (Cundinamarca Department) with a two-tier observation that examines the State’s intervention, approach and structure at a local level.

5Theoretically, this intervention forms part of the territorialisation of public action (Négrier 2007; Duran 2011), which transfers considerations on social group interaction (facilitators), the power to plan tourism and the space where that action is to take place. The crux of creating tourism sites involves dimensions related to the State exercising power over the territory and constructing territoriality through institutional facilitators that highlight new land uses, and plan and manage the land for new economic activities.

  • 3 Loose translation of: “Système de relation qu’entretient une collectivité - et, partant, d’un indiv (...)

6Territoriality involves stakeholders seeking to affect or influence (Sack 1986, pp. 19–22), and it is also a “relationship system that a community—and therefore an individual belonging to it—has with exteriority and/or alterity aided by facilitators” (Raffestin 1982, p. 170).3 For the study of tourism implementation, this involves considering social practices in the space, the relationships society establishes with the territory, and changes in the territory resulting from the social objectives the facilitators pursue. The latter can be political or economic leaders (Raffestin 2012, p. 60), or residents in the local area. We distinguish between them because the former are officials with power stemming from their position in the State bureaucracy (Lagroye 1997 [1991], p. 131).

  • 4 Raffestin C. and Barampama A. 2004 [1998] can be consulted for the concepts of human geography and, (...)

7However, as we will see throughout this article, the hierarchies of power vary and play specific roles in determining what should be done or what can be done when creating tourism sites. For this reason, a two-tier observational analysis is proposed, working on the principle that exercising power for tourism implementation is explicit in institutional architecture. Ministerial bodies intervene in areas and territories due to a process emanating from the State’s management power, which seeks to organise facilitators and geographical spaces through decentralisation and creates interactions between local and national and public and private stakeholders and officials.4

I. Assessment of the land studied and method used

8On assessing the proposed municipalities, we find that the natural conditions in Villavieja are favourable towards encouraging tourism due to Tatacoa Desert (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Tatacoa Desert (Huila, Colombia).

Figure 1. Tatacoa Desert (Huila, Colombia).

A. Andrade, August 2017

9Covering an area of 330 km, this is a dry tropical and very dry tropical forest (temperature of 35 °C) containing Colombia’s best palaeontological assets, such as fossils of large mammals, and there is potential for geological studies. As the desert is an exceptional place for stargazing, it has been promoted for international tourism (Figure 2) and become an economic priority in a municipality whose incidence of poverty reached 44.3% of the population in 2015.

Figure 2. Location of Tatacoa Desert.

Figure 2. Location of Tatacoa Desert.

Regional District with Integrated Management (DMRI-CAM) (2015).

10La Mesa, just 65 km from Bogota, has tourism features focusing on cultural and ecological perspectives (Cundinamarca Tourism Development Plan 2012), and a pleasant climate (22–28 °C). The inventory of its tourism sites includes natural landscapes and tangible cultural resources such as five royal roads, railway stations and vista points (Parra 2008) (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Location of the Municipality of La Mesa.

Figure 3. Location of the Municipality of La Mesa.

A. Andrade with the technical assistance of Julia Gutiérrez.

11La Masa is both a city, which, according to its motto, is friendly and welcoming, and a municipality with 30,000 inhabitants, 34 rural settlements and three police jurisdictions (La Esperanza, San Joaquín and San Javier).

12This study required an information collation exercise that began with a compilation of rules governing tourism in Colombia and forming the legal framework for local administrative bodies. Reports, evaluations, plans, assessments and information bulletins issued by public bodies were also collated through direct requests or taken from the platforms of the institutions concerned, so that we could understand their form of management, institutional planning practices and the status of the implementation process at a local level.

13Fieldwork consisted of touring and visiting locations and sites with an influx of tourists (royal roads, ravines, Tatacoa Desert and its surrounding area and two former train stations) in the municipalities of La Mesa and Villavieja in July 2017, with the stays in both places lasting one week, and then a return to La Mesa in December 2017 lasting three days.

14The two-tier observation perspective thus involved interviews with national and local officials. Firstly, with civil servants from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT) and the Tourism Promotion Fund (FONTUR) and then with their local counterparts, i.e., public officials responsible for implementing or complying with the rules and management proposed at a national level. In both cases the interviews were semi-open, taking place face-to-face or by telephone. Electronic messaging was also used, and responses to questionnaires were obtained in the same way, when the officials chose this disclosure mechanism.

  • 5 We are grateful to Luz Dary Carvajal, President of the Crensa Foundation, for her advice and inform (...)

15The local stakeholders we interviewed were selected on the basis of their role in the development and promotion of tourism in the municipalities of La Mesa and Villavieja. For example, officials responsible for the tourism implementation process and its economic promotion. As local progress is in its infancy, as evidenced by the scarcity of staff working on the subject, the absence of an office devoted exclusively to tourism management and dissemination when the fieldwork took place, and virtual lack of any qualitative and quantitative information on conditions in the territory for establishing tourism-related activities, we also had to use indirect sources through interviews held during the tours or outside the observation area to provide us with more knowledge of the study subject. At a local level, private stakeholders were also interviewed. They were selected based on their interest in implementing this activity (theme park managers, motorcycle taxi drivers, informal guides in Villavieja and shopkeepers). Two in-depth interviews were held with an expert in drafting tourism projects for the municipalities of the Crensa Foundation5 in August 2017.

II. Decentralisation and territorial planning as ways to establish tourism in Colombia

16In Colombia, tourism policies began in 1931, when Law 48 establishing the Official Tourism Service came into effect to “configure a national tourist geography that is promoted abroad” (Bolívar et al. 2001, p. 72), linked to the promotion of sites and national events, such as the National Beauty Contest of Cartagena (ibid., p. 74). When the Colombian Tourism Company was founded in 1957, public action centred on prioritised investment in places such as the Atlantic Coast, which has become a traditional destination for Colombian tourism, and external promotion mainly in Venezuela. The National Tourism Corporation was created a decade later, focusing on selling tourism infrastructure to private industry and prioritising the domestic market (ibid.).

17Our study of the abovementioned municipalities focuses on government management from a national decentralisation perspective, as this is essential for understanding how the new wave of tourism implementation is currently faring in Colombia since the State bases its organisation, management and territorialisation of this activity on this approach.

  • 6 In French: “politique qui accorde davantage d’autonomie aux collectivités locales et transfère une (...)
  • 7 In French: “ l’ouverture d’un processus de redéfinition des normes, des outils, des configurations (...)

18In fact, this process, understood as a “policy that grants more autonomy to communities and transfers part of the central power to local authorities” (Lacoste 1993, p. 514),6 involves “the beginning of a process of redefining previous stakeholders’ rules, tools and configurations, a process forming the territorialisation phenomenon of public action” (Mériaux 2005, p. 27).7 Begun in Colombia in 1983 (Gutiérrez 2010), this process, together with the transformation of the State towards a liberal view and the proclamation of the Colombian Constitution in 1991, established the bases for a new public action system for both power and intervention in territories. Marcou (2008), cited by De la Torre (2017, p. 98), highlights that Colombia’s decentralisation objectives were political and economic as they focused on giving the State more prominence at local and regional levels, since their stakeholders’ presence was sometimes “exclusive and arbitrary”, as pointed out by Leal and Dávila (1991), cited in De la Torre (ibid.).

19In economic terms, as resources and a tax deficit continued to be concentrated at a national level, territorial authorities had to be reorganised to provide “local executives ... with public services on the assumption that ... it would improve service quality and population coverage” (De la Torre 2017, p. 98) by transferring powers to municipalities and allowing them to participate in the budget. To sum up, tax, social and service aspects were decentralised (Gutiérrez 2010).

20This process, implemented in a first stage with steps as important as establishing local authority elections by universal suffrage and allocating resources from a central to a local level, has been transformed since the end of 1998. The enactment of Law 489/1998 on local authority and national development plan organisation between 2000 and 2010, combined with the General System of Economic Participation for Departments, Districts and Municipalities in the Nation’s current revenue (Legislative Act 01/2001), led to a return to the past since the State sought to re-centralise management, administration and planning of the local public sector (De la Torre 2017, p. 99). As far as the study subject is concerned, this shift specifically meant that an examination of the territory and its organisation should primarily be based on the belief that territorial planning suffices to achieve the required objectives at a local level.

21That is why territorial planning became obligatory (Legislative Act 03/2011) through regional and municipal plans (art. 339), and Department Assemblies were obliged, through Ordinances, to issue provisions related to planning, economic and social development, and financial and credit support for municipalities, including for tourism (art. 300). Decentralisation immediately became a way of managing the country’s sector resources: “health, education and drinking water ... but which made it the Nation’s useful instrument for performing the most urgent tasks, irrespective of whether it was consistent or fitted with regional priorities” (Barberena 2010, p. 58).

22Territorial tourism planning was specified by the General Tourism Law 300/1996. This regulation established the sector’s economic importance and the need to anticipate its expansion in a specific plan as part of the national development plan (produced by the DNP, the National Planning Department), which every municipality had to produce, targeting competitiveness (Toro 2003), and agreements between national and regional authorities through tourism competitiveness agreements (year 2000) for products and destinations (Fernández 2003). Public action at a national level has adopted a sectoral and hierarchical approach to management, governed by the MINCIT, which identifies potential stakeholders in tourism development and results in interactions between facilitators.

  • 8 As a sector objective he proposed “positioning Colombia as a viable and sustainable tourist destina (...)
  • 9 Through several actions such as the certification of service quality for sector operators; loans fr (...)

23The MINCIT’s work as a facilitator is essential (drafting, managing, coordinating and evaluating economic and social development policy, managing investment funds for the sector, through FONTUR, the Tourism Promotion Fund) since it finally decided to create tourism sites using a variety of mechanisms following overall guidelines, objectives and policies in the government’s national plan. By way of example, President Juan Manuel Santos’ plan (2014–2018)8 addressed public devices and the Ministry’s central role. Its position as a provider of services9 for the public and private sector involves intervening directly in improving the quality of tourism sites and existing products, the large-scale creation of tourist regions, for example the “Tourism Corridors of Magical Realism” programme, and starlight destinations. The latter involves international certification obtained after complying with the environmental and infrastructure conditions of the territory in question to attract more international tourism, which is the aim with Tatacoa Desert.

  • 10 In 2017, 600 tourism providers received this type of support. Information provided by John Alexande (...)
  • 11 Emphasised in MINCIT.

24The intermediate facilitators’ role in the hierarchy of power—here the governments of the Departments of Cundinamarca and Huila—is as administrators and coordinators of the matter and of MINCIT programmes. These two facilitators interact on the basis of the State’s view of decentralisation in Colombia, which, in this case, turns the national entity into a provider of services to municipalities across several issues (advice for producing the local tourism plan, link to investment projects and training),10 highlighted as free,11 in accordance with their guidelines. The municipalities’ autonomous stance lies at the heart of local action, since they are expected to make direct requests on their own initiative to produce their local tourism plan—the local link to specific national programmes or projects. This coincides with the fact that the autonomy dimension is deemed synonymous with decentralisation in local authorities in Colombia (De la Torre 2017, p. 99).

25These elements obviously provide municipalities with new public action frameworks and also create functional reference systems both public and private facilitators can use at a local level and they interlink when tourism is established at new sites such as La Mesa, Cundinamarca, or improved at others, such as Tatacoa Desert.

  • 12 Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT) (2007).

26National facilitators have introduced a new level of local management that revolves around producing local municipal plans required by Law (152/1994) and based on National Tourism Plan guidelines. They require considerable technical expertise, as demonstrated in the Technical Assistance Manual12 in use during the last three national governments. Figure 4 provides a summarised sample of the specific requirements to be met to draft these documents. Note the importance given to a thorough survey of the territory, its heritage and its geographical, historical, economic and statistical information. The MINCIT defined six method types that municipalities use depending on the potential or degree of local tourism development.

Figure 4. Examples of method to develop department tourism plans

CONVENTIONAL TOURISM PLAN(For regions or localities with emerging tourism development)

General part

Limitations and potential

General information

Market development

Tourist attractions

Infrastructure

Tourism infrastructure

Superstructure

Education requirements for tourism

Use of technology

SWOT analysis, problems and image

Objectives

Strategies

Programmes and projects

Marketing and promotion

Improved infrastructure

Superstructure coordination

Improved technology

Attraction of investment

Pluriannual investment plan

TOURISM MASTER PLAN (For regions or localities with a high level of tourism development)

I: Conducting an analysis of the current situation in the tourism sector (12 stages)

II: Defining the most appropriate tourism development model for the region and for each of its territorial components (4 stages)

III: Defining the general strategic lines for the territory’s tourism development (5 stages)

IV: Developing a business plan (5 stages)

V: Developing the Master Plan (8 stages)

VI: Designing strategies to attract investors (7 stages)

Stages in producing tourism development plans

Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT) (2007).

27Consequently, national facilitators establish what is required to transform spaces into tourism sites and territories or to spark local actions along these lines. This reveals denotative issues (Raffestin 2012, p. 58), such as coherence between the State’s liberal stance, the competitiveness and sustainability of tourist destinations and products, and the future profitability of projects to be financed. Now we need to examine the formats and dynamics that this desire for proactive tourism planning produces on a local scale.

III. Dynamics and challenges involved in specifying the national tourism policy at municipal level

28To understand the progress and challenges of the tourism implementation initiative at a local level, we need to examine the local dynamics this process involves for municipalities in a decentralised framework. Firstly, local officials have direct responsibilities in the tourism implementation process, not only because they have the mandate to ensure national plans are fulfilled in municipalities, but also because they have territorial powers (for example, they can decide how land is used in accordance with the Political Constitution, art. 313) directly involved in producing territories designed for this activity.

A. La Mesa, administrative constraints and territorial challenges

29One of the observation elements of the tourism implementation process in Colombia based on the territorial planning MINCIT requests from municipalities is how this plan is drawn up. It is based on mayors elected by popular vote, who are required by legislation stemming from the National and Department Plan to include a tourism development plan in their government plan, not always having expert personnel, institutional arrangements or at least internal management for this task. Local planning is, therefore, governed by the department’s guidelines for that area and reproduces them in local plans.

  • 13 Interview with Luz Dary Carvajal, President of the Crensa Foundation. (August 2017)

30Given officials’ shortcomings, advisers external to the municipality or expert organisations (e.g. NGOs) may be hired to draft the sector plan.13 Although there is a Secretariat for Economic and Tourism Development in the municipality, with the same hierarchical level as other Secretariats (Infrastructure, Health and Treasury), its officials have to perform multiple tasks and deal with other issues. Similarly, some actions of the Development Plan of Cundinamarca Department may be implemented along general lines without any local planning (Municipality of La Mesa 2012). This is the case of La Mesa Reverdece, Ecotourism and La Mesa International Tourist Destination.

  • 14 Assessment of the royal roads of Resbalón in San Javier, Palmar and Tigre. The site of the natural (...)
  • 15 Just over €15,000 (40 million Colombian pesos) had been earmarked in 2016; in the current period of (...)

31The planning process is also fraught with management difficulties, since collating basic information on the governed territory and feasible sites for tourist creation requires personnel that are not available. At department level, they have produced inventories of tourist attractions and 11 main lines of action for the 2010–2020 horizon (Government of Cundinamarca, 2012). A field information survey was conducted for the first time in 2017. It outlined a first assessment of some specific resources that could become tourist attractions and detailed their state of deterioration,14 making it clear, as Viveros and Sabina (2016) stated, that there is significant demand for local investment to restore historic sites, and for community and ecological tourism, in a situation where financial solvency is low.15

  • 16 Virtual page of FONTUR available at: (fontur.com.co/corporativo/naturaleza-juridica/9) (accessed on (...)
  • 17 For example, just for the central corridor that includes the territories of Huila, Tolima, Cundinam (...)
  • 18 Telephone interview with John García, Manager of the adventure tourism company Wuaira (October 2017 (...)

32For this purpose, the decentralised framework provides the resources of FONTUR, which is a MINCIT body responsible for collecting, managing and providing finance for tourism, to alleviate any municipal financial deficiencies. These funds can be obtained by submitting projects following the tourism promotion, marketing, competitiveness and infrastructure guidelines in the abovementioned technical manual.16 However, La Mesa’s difficulties can be summed up by the municipality’s absence from the Ministry’s initiative with the most national impact, the “Tourism Corridors of Magical Realism”, whose major investments17 can only be accessed by submitting regional or local proposals. The municipality implements specific actions for the sector (participation in promoting coffee fairs, training of tour operators, clean-up days and royal road maintenance) (Municipality of La Mesa 2016, p. 25) that do not meet the intentions and degree of development expected by private operators, who believe that local public interventions are “scarce or non-existent” because they “are volatile”, among other reasons.18

  • 19 They expect 60,000–65,000 tourists to arrive in La Mesa every year, with most coming from Bogotá (i (...)

33Private facilitators own 90% of tourism offerings (Viveros and Sabina 2016, p. 119). Although there are no official figures, the increase in creating tourism sites has revolved around leisure activities (adventure, culture, bird watching, sports and corporate events) taking the format of theme parks (Makute, Macadamia) or nature tour companies (Wuaira), or various types of accommodation (41 hotels, estates and lodgings).19 These entrepreneurs have begun to organise themselves into associations, such as the Tequendama Tourism Association (Corturistec), to consolidate actions and open up to the international market. Although the stakeholders agree in recognising that the territory has value due to its rural and landscape heritage, responding to demand to establish the sector requires public and private facilitators, officials and stakeholders to interact with each other based on regulatory frameworks existing since 2012 (Law 1558/2012, art. 9). However, these interaction processes are far-reaching and only began to be implemented in this municipality at the end of 2017.

  • 20 See: Municipality of La Mesa 2017.

34MINCIT’s territorial public action comprises local autonomisation by proposing technological training or participation in work groups that this Ministry coordinates from Bogota, supported by training agencies such as the National Learning Service (Sena), department government, the Chamber of Commerce of Girardot and others. At a local level, however, territorial repossession of potential tourism sites is a priority, since rail tracks, their stations, and the networks of royal roads dating from colonial times are being lost as victims of illegal seizure, authorised use, or simply a lack of maintenance20 (Figures 5 and 6).

Figure 5. State of the old railway in San Javier police jurisdiction, La Mesa (Cundinamarca)

Figure 5. State of the old railway in San Javier police jurisdiction, La Mesa (Cundinamarca)

A. Andrade, December 2017

Figure 6. El Palmar Royal Road, private land seizures and loss of the alignment due to scrub vegetation.

Figure 6. El Palmar Royal Road, private land seizures and loss of the alignment due to scrub vegetation.

Municipality of La Mesa (2017)

35In the past, royal roads were undoubtedly essential public thoroughfares for regional communication. Mules and muleteers, load bearers, merchants and inhabitants from all over the region used to travel along them with agricultural produce to access population centres where food was stockpiled, such as La Mesa, or reach train stations such as San Javier, Anolaima and Cachipay. These places were essential junctions given that the railroad covered 132 km, linking Bogota with Girardot. The latter is the port city on Magdalena River, which has linked the interior of the country with the commercial seaports of Cartagena, Santa Marta and Barranquilla, on the Caribbean Sea, since colonial times.

36Today, they have potential for tourism development due to their historic assets, for example, three royal roads (Alto del Tigre, San Javier and Palmar) in the rural area of La Mesa, and one of the sites of most ecotourism interest, the Salto de las Monjas waterfall. However, these spaces are gradually disappearing and deteriorating since they are falling victim to private land seizure practices and, in some cases, sections are abandoned or becoming waste areas.

37The first practices mentioned include owners of farms adjacent to the roads erecting fences, the invasion of sections, construction of houses on old routes or absorbing nature and the loss of the alignment due to a lack of maintenance. Several sections have become waste disposal sites for domestic or construction waste, as well as places to dump domestic and agricultural wastewater (resulting from pig farming, for example) where drain pipes can be seen protruding from the boundaries of the farms adjacent to the old roads. In some places, wastewater settles onto these roads.

  • 21 Juan Benítez and Olga García, La Mesa residents (Interview, December 2017).

38There are also other problems related to water system management (aqueduct). Insufficient water for the municipal capital has resulted in decisions to supply the population with this service every 15 days for only a few hours when there is a drought, for example.21

B. Villavieja and Tatacoa Desert: a sustainability issue

39Understanding the specific aspects of the tourism implementation process in this municipality first requires us to consider the legal status of the area encompassing Tatacoa Desert. In 2008 (Figure 7), this territory was defined as a Regional District with Integrated Management (Regional District with Integrated Management 2015, p. 67), which in regulations means that it is a “geographical space where landscapes and ecosystems maintain their composition and function, even when their structure has been modified and whose associated natural and cultural values are made available to the human population for sustainable use, preservation, restoration, knowledge and enjoyment”.

Figure 7. Development of the legal status of Tatacoa

Year

Decisions

2008

Declared a Natural Regional Park, Agreement 17/2008 CAM (Autonomous Corporation of Alto Magdalena), surface area 56,676 hectares.

2010

Declared a Regional Natural Park, protecting Villavieja and 11 other settlements.

2011

Agreement 016 modifies the 2008 agreement and reduces the park’s surface area to 35,830 hectares.

2014

Agreement 8 of 25/09 changes the Regional Natural Park into a Regional District Protected Area. It has special management, namely Regional District with Integrated Management (Decree 1076 of 2015), by CAM. The protected area represents 35% of the municipalities of Villavieja/Baraya.

A. Andrade, based on Regional District with Integrated Management (2015)

40To sum up, this is an environmental management formula for a specific area that includes the reserve and administration, as well as the demarcation, boundary, and subtraction of Integrated Management Districts containing strategic landscapes and ecosystems. In the case studied this involved the demarcation and zoning of its area and a planning process (Regional District with Integrated Management 2015, p. 70) (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Zoning of Tatacoa Desert.

Figure 8. Zoning of Tatacoa Desert.

Regional District with Integrated Management (DMRI-CAM) (2015)

41However, its current status is the result of a long history of occupation of the northern part of the Department of Huila, when the campesinos fleeing violence in the departments of Caldas, Quindío, Risaralda arrived between 1940 and 1950. The CAM study reports that they mainly settled on small properties throughout the area and until 2016 there were 303 families in the DRMI of La Tatacoa (1,060 people). Attempts to implement the pillars of sustainable tourism (environmental, economic, social and cultural) can be thwarted by social deposits, resulting from public and private land management practices that make it hard to comply with national and local plans and projects. Therefore, the land has been seized by private investors and descendants of the first settlers in the area (Figure 9).

Figure 9. Announcement of restaurant service in Tatacoa.

Figure 9. Announcement of restaurant service in Tatacoa.

A. Andrade, August 2017

  • 22 This includes poor implementation of septic tanks, lack of a sewer system and a drinking water trea (...)

42An increase in tourism offerings and hotel, shop and resort services, which are not sustainable due to problems with the municipality’s water deficit (irregular abstraction of water, destruction of vegetation, springs and riparian corridors) and a lack of infrastructure22 linked to a process of deforestation and desertification in the area (90% of the territory), put their survival at risk (Figure 10).

Figure 10. Pool that uses groundwater in Tatacoa Desert

Figure 10. Pool that uses groundwater in Tatacoa Desert

A. Andrade, August 2017

  • 23 John Hernandez, Villavieja tourism coordinator, interview held in August 2017.

43Furthermore, the descendants of the area’s first occupants have built houses without any controls, in many cases by dividing the land belonging to the estates of their families, former settlers.23 This is understandable because the boom in visitors, 172,148 in 2016 (John Hernandez 2017), mainly families, with the much anticipated foreigners (mainly from Germany, France and Holland) making up 20%, creates competition for land occupancy so they can benefit from marketing the tourism products and services of restaurants, accommodation, formal and informal guides and so on.

  • 24 The actions considered include: conservation of watersheds; sustainable uses of ecosystems; recover (...)

44Although the protection plan set up by the CAM environmental authority has identified these problems and their solutions,24 checks and management of them do not seem to suffice, since, despite the legal status enjoyed by the DMRI, “the concern now is that protected areas are often built on and the desert is turning into another settlement,” (ibid.) thus losing its essence as a natural space.

  • 25 In French: “gisement touristique” (Raffestin 2012, p. 62).

45Local administrative facilitators began to see this “tourism deposit”25 (an expression used by Raffestin to indicate the potential of sites for this activity), given the sector’s growing importance, and for the first time an official was appointed in the municipality to coordinate and develop the issue, while 16 police officers were responsible for security and surveillance in the desert and urban areas (total surface area of 670 km2). The focus is currently on sustainability training, improving the quality of attention paid to tourism and intervention or support in setting up events such as the 2nd Astro-Tourism Festival.

Conclusions

46The creation of tourism sites is closely linked to territorial public action, which in this case begins with the MINCIT, the national institution at the heart of the process since it manages the issue based on a decentralisation and development planning perspective that conveys national policies to municipal bodies. When creating tourism sites (Raffestin 2012, p. 59), local authorities should be autonomous managers that plan and coordinate public and private stakeholders and provide funding for tourism projects.

47However, the municipalities studied face situations that make it hard for them to produce and implement national plans due to bureaucratic and financial shortcomings in a framework in which the possibilities of tapping into public resources depend on municipal management and obtaining resources with no specific allocation (own and transfers from the central level). Above all, central planning requirements turn into a normative obligation. Their local relevance lies in making people aware of “what needs to be done” to establish tourism, even if small municipal administrations find the guidelines hard to follow.

48From an area perspective, we agree with Raffestin (2012, p. 58), insofar as tourism implementation is a long-term process since it depends on the territory’s natural conditions and on the relationship that the social groups concerned establish among themselves and with the space they relate to. This poses a challenge for the municipalities we studied because they need to build a new territoriality that enables repossession of publicly owned spaces and areas currently used by private stakeholders. The overlapping deposits of the relationships that the State, at a national level, and the authorities, at a local level, have placed on the territory, influence the construction of a renewed and sustainable territory for a new wave of exploitation.

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Bibliographie

Barberena, V. (2010), “Las preguntas sin respuesta de la descentralización: encrucijadas y nuevos caminos”, in Fundación Konrad Adenauer en Colombia (Ed.), 25 años de la descentralización en Colombia, Graficolor, Bogotá, pp. 55–87.

Bolívar, I., Arias, J. and Vásquez M. (2001), “Estetizar la política: lo nacional de la belleza y la geografía del turismo, 1947-1970”, in Bolívar, I., Ferro, G. and Dávila, A. (Eds.), Belleza, fútbol y religiosidad popular, Ministerio de Cultura, Bogotá, pp. 45–84.

De la Torre, L. (2017), “Descentralizar, contractualizar: el nuevo marco de la gobernanza multiniveles”, Opera, julio-diciembre, No. 21, pp. 95-112, disponible en: https://revistas.uexternado.edu.co/index.php/opera/article/view/5131 (fecha de acceso 15 de mayo de 2018).

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Duran, P. (2011), “Territorialización”, in Pasquier, R., Cole, A. and Guigner, S., Dictionnaire des politiques territoriales, Presses de Sciences po., Paris, pp. 475–481.

Fernández, V. (2003), “Una mirada al desarrollo turístico regional en Colombia”, Turismo y Sociedad, Vol. 2, pp. 17–34, disponible en: https://revistas.uexternado.edu.co/index.php/tursoc/article/view/2205 (fecha de acceso 21 de octubre de 2017).

Gutiérrez, F. (2010), “Instituciones y territorio: la Descentralización en Colombia”, in Fundación Konrad Adenauer en Colombia (Ed.), 25 años de la descentralización en Colombia, Graficolor, Bogotá, pp. 11–54.

Lacoste, Y. (1993), Dictionnaire de géopolitique, Flammarion, Paris.

Lagroye, J. (1997[1991]), Sociologie politique, Presses de Sciences po, Dalloz, 3ème éd., Paris,

Mériaux, O. (2005), “Le débordement territorial des politiques sectorielles”, in Faure, A. and Douillet, A. (Eds.), L’action publique et la question territoriale, PUG, Grenoble, pp. 27–32.

Negrier, E. (2007), “Penser la contingence territoriale”, in Negrier, E. and Faure, A. (éds.), Les politiques publiques à l’épreuve de l’action locale. Critiques de la territorialisation, L’Harmattan, Paris.

Parra, C. (2008), Identificación y valoración de los recursos del territorio con potencial turístico en el municipio de La Mesa – Cundinamarca, Trabajo de grado de pregrado, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá.

Raffestin, C. (1982), “Remarques sur les notions d’espace, de territoire et de territorialité”, Espaces et sociétés, No.41, juin-décembre, pp. 167–171.

Raffestin, C. (1986), “Ecogenèse territoriale et territorialité”, in Auriac, F. and Brunet, R., Espaces, jeux et enjeux, Fayard & Fondation Diderot, Paris, pp. 175–185.

Raffestin, C. (2012), “Les paradoxes du tourisme ?”, Rivista ricerche per la progettazione del paesaggio, Università degli Studi di Firenze, enero-junio, pp. 57–62.

Raffestin, C. and Barampama, A. (2004 [1998]), “Espace et pouvoir”, in Bailly, A. (éd.), Les concepts de la géographie humaine, 5ème éd., Armand Collin, Paris, pp. 63–71.

Sack, R. (1986), Human Territoriality. Its theory and history, Cambridge University Press, New-York, N.Y.

Sánchez, L. (2015), “De territorios, límites, bordes y fronteras: una conceptualización para abordar conflictos sociales”, Revista de Estudios Sociales, Vol. 53 No. 7/8, pp. 175–179.

Toro, G. (2003), “La Política Pública de Turismo en Colombia”, Revista Turismo y Sociedad, Vol. 2, pp. 9–15.

Viveros, Y. and Sabina, K. (2016), Evaluación de las capacidades institucionales y administrativa pública, en el turismo de naturaleza en los municipios de Viotá y La Mesa Cundinamarca, Universidad F. José de Caldas, Bogotá.

Colombian official documents

Acto Legislativo 01/2001 [Legislative Act 01/2001], regulated by Ley 715 de 2001, “Por la cual se dictan normas orgánicas en materia de recursos y competencias de conformidad con los artículos 151, 288, 356 y 357 de la Constitución Política y se dictan otras disposiciones para organizar la prestación de los servicios de educación y salud, entre otros” [Law 715 of 2001, “Whereby organic regulations are established concerning resources and powers in accordance with articles 151, 288, 356 and 357 of the Political Constitution and other provisions are established to organise the provision of education and health services, among others”.

Acto Legislativo 03/2011, “Por el cual se establece el principio de la sostenibilidad fiscal” [Legislative Act 03/2011, “Whereby the principle of fiscal sustainability is established”].

Municipality of La Mesa (2012), Development Plan of Cundinamarca Department (2012–2015).

Municipality of La Mesa (2016), Informe Enero-Diciembre 2016, Plan de Desarrollo Juntos Sí Podemos [January–December 2016 Report, Together We Can Development Plan] La Mesa, Cundinamarca.

Municipality of La Mesa (2017), Diagnóstico de los caminos reales de El Resbalón en San Javier; El Palmar; El Tigre, El Salto de las Monjas (Assessment of the royal roads of El Resbalón in San Javier, El Palmar, El Tigre, Salto de las Monjas), La Mesa Municipality, La Mesa, Cundinamarca.

Municipality of Villavieja (2012), Plan de Desarrollo Villavieja 2012-2015 [Villavieja Development Plan 2012–2015] Unidos por el Cambio [United for Change], Villavieja, Huila.

Municipality of Villavieja (2016), Plan de Desarrollo Villavieja 2016–2019 Villavieja como empresa progresa [Villavieja Development Plan 2016–2019 Villavieja as a Progressive Business], Villavieja, Huila.

Departamento Nacional de Estadística (DANE, National Department of Statistics) (2015), Boletín técnico [Technical Bulletin], Huila 2015.

Distrito de Manejo Regional Integrado (DMRI-CAM, Regional District with Integrated Management) (2015), Plan de Manejo Ambiental [Environmental Management Plan] - Distrito Regional de Manejo Integrado [Regional District with Integrated Management] - La Tatacoa, Neiva, Huila.

Government of Cundinamarca (2002), Plan de Desarrollo Turístico de Cundinamarca [Cundinamarca Tourism Development Plan], Bogotá.

Government of Cundinamarca (2012), Plan decenal de turismo, La Mesa destino turístico 2011-2020 [Ten-Year Tourism Plan, La Mesa Tourist Destination 2011–2020], Cundisan and Fundación Universitaria Cafam [Cafam University Foundation], Bogotá.

Government of Cundinamarca (2012), Plan de Desarrollo (2012-2015) [Development Plan (2012–2015)].

Congress of Colombia, Ley 152/1994, “Ley Orgánica del Plan de Desarrollo” [Law 152/1994, “Organic Law of the Development Plan”].

Congress of Colombia, Ley 300/1996, “Ley General de Turismo” [Law 300/1996, “General Law on Tourism”].

Congress of Colombia, Ley 489/1998, “Por la cual se dictan normas sobre la organización y funcionamiento de las entidades del orden nacional” [Law 489/1998, “Whereby rules are established on the organisation and operation of national organisations”.

Congress of Colombia, Ley 1558/2012, “Por la cual se modifica la Ley 300 de 1996 -Ley General de Turismo, la Ley de 2006 y se dictan otras disposiciones” [Law 1558/2012, "Whereby Law 300 of 1996 - General Law on Tourism, and the Law of 2006 are modified and other provisions are established”.

Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT) (2007), Vice-Ministry of Tourism, Directorate of Quality and Sustainable Development, Manual de Asistencia técnica en planificación del turismo [Manual of Technical Assistance in Tourism Planning], Bogota.

Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT) (2016), Corredores Turísticos del Realismo Mágico 2010–2016 [Tourism Corridors of Magical Realism 2010–2016], Bogota

Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT) (2014), Plan Sectorial de Turismo 2014-2018 [Tourism Sector Plan 2014–2018], Bogota.

Websites:

Géoconfluences, available at: geoconfluences.ens-lyon.fr) [consulted on: 28/10/17].

Interviews

Diego Montoya, Secretary of Tourism and Development for La Mesa, in the municipality. Interview held in August 2017 in the Municipality of La Mesa.

John Hernandez, Villavieja tourism coordinator. Interview held in August 2017 in the municipality of Villavieja.

John Alexander Ramos, tourism corridor coordinator, FONTUR, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism. Telephone interview and electronic response to questionnaire on 25 August 2017.

John Alexander Ramos, tourism corridor coordinator, FONTUR, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism. Electronic questionnaire on 4 November 2017.

John García, manager of Wuaira. Interview conducted by telephone on 30 October 2017.

Juan Benítez and Olga García, residents and owners of a shop selling agricultural produce in La Mesa. Interview conducted in La Mesa on 27 December 2017.

Luz Dary Carvajal Gómez, president of the Crensa Foundation, which focuses on tourism development in Colombian municipalities. Two interviews held in Bogota on 15 and 30 August 2017.

Mary Amalia Vásquez Murillo, Director of Tourism Quality and Sustainable Development, Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism. Questionnaire completed electronically on 4 November 2017.

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Annexe

Abbreviations

DNP: Departamento Nacional de Planeación [National Planning Department]

MINCIT: Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo [Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism]

FONTUR: Fondo de Desarrollo Turístico [Tourism Development Fund]

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Notes

1 By way of example San Andrés, Cartagena, Santa Marta and Amazonas. Since the late 1990s, parks and coffee farms in Quindío Department, landscape in Meta, beaches and ecosystems in Chocó.

2 Loose translation of “Mise en Tourisme: Processus de création d’un lieu touristique ou de subversion d’un lieu ancien par le tourisme qui aboutit à un état : le lieu touristique .” Taken from Géoconfluences (www.geoconfluences.ens-lyon.fr) (accessed on 28 October 2017).

3 Loose translation of: “Système de relation qu’entretient une collectivité - et, partant, d’un individu qu’y appartient - avec l’extériorité et/ou l’altérité à l’aide de médiateurs”. In: Raffestin 1982, p. 170.

4 Raffestin C. and Barampama A. 2004 [1998] can be consulted for the concepts of human geography and, specifically, space and power.

5 We are grateful to Luz Dary Carvajal, President of the Crensa Foundation, for her advice and information on the subject of tourism in Colombia.

6 In French: “politique qui accorde davantage d’autonomie aux collectivités locales et transfère une part du pouvoir central aux échelons locaux”(Lacoste 1993, p. 514).

7 In French: “ l’ouverture d’un processus de redéfinition des normes, des outils, des configurations d’acteurs antérieurs, processus constitutif du phénomène de territorialisation de l’action publique” (Mériaux 2005, p. 27).

8 As a sector objective he proposed “positioning Colombia as a viable and sustainable tourist destination recognised in world markets and valued in national markets for its multiculturality and megadiversity, with highly competitive offerings that elevate the travel and tourism industry to its maximum potential as a promoter of regional development and constructor of peace” (Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism 2014, p. 32).

9 Through several actions such as the certification of service quality for sector operators; loans from the public bank Bancoldex to finance quality certification; publication of booklets and manuals to implement the sector’s technical standards and others. Information available at: (www.mincit.gov.co/minturismo/inicio).

10 In 2017, 600 tourism providers received this type of support. Information provided by John Alexander Ramos, tourism corridors coordinator, FONTUR, electronic questionnaire, 4 November 2017.

11 Emphasised in MINCIT.

12 Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism (MINCIT) (2007).

13 Interview with Luz Dary Carvajal, President of the Crensa Foundation. (August 2017)

14 Assessment of the royal roads of Resbalón in San Javier, Palmar and Tigre. The site of the natural waterfall known as Salto de las Monjas was also assessed (Municipality of La Mesa, December 2017).

15 Just over €15,000 (40 million Colombian pesos) had been earmarked in 2016; in the current period of government (2016–2019), the Secretariat only has €57,000 (200 million Colombian pesos) for all activities in the economic sector, including tourism.

16 Virtual page of FONTUR available at: (fontur.com.co/corporativo/naturaleza-juridica/9) (accessed on 30 November 2017).

17 For example, just for the central corridor that includes the territories of Huila, Tolima, Cundinamarca, Bogotá and Boyacá, an investment of more than €24 million (83 billion pesos) has been made. Converted using the January 2017 exchange rate, 1 Euro = 3445 Colombian Pesos). See: “Tourism Corridors of Magical Realism”, in: Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism 2016, p. 62.

18 Telephone interview with John García, Manager of the adventure tourism company Wuaira (October 2017).

19 They expect 60,000–65,000 tourists to arrive in La Mesa every year, with most coming from Bogotá (ibid.)

20 See: Municipality of La Mesa 2017.

21 Juan Benítez and Olga García, La Mesa residents (Interview, December 2017).

22 This includes poor implementation of septic tanks, lack of a sewer system and a drinking water treatment plant, and use of groundwater in the desert, which is extracted informally by hotel owners or supplied by trucks.

23 John Hernandez, Villavieja tourism coordinator, interview held in August 2017.

24 The actions considered include: conservation of watersheds; sustainable uses of ecosystems; recovery of native seeds; environmental education; training in tourism; ecotourism; creation of areas with trails; management and regulation for ecotourism. See: Municipality of Villavieja (2012); Municipality of Villavieja (2016).

25 In French: “gisement touristique” (Raffestin 2012, p. 62).

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Table des illustrations

Titre Figure 1. Tatacoa Desert (Huila, Colombia).
Crédits A. Andrade, August 2017
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-1.png
Fichier image/png, 3,0M
Titre Figure 2. Location of Tatacoa Desert.
Crédits Regional District with Integrated Management (DMRI-CAM) (2015).
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-2.png
Fichier image/png, 340k
Titre Figure 3. Location of the Municipality of La Mesa.
Crédits A. Andrade with the technical assistance of Julia Gutiérrez.
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-3.png
Fichier image/png, 305k
Titre Figure 5. State of the old railway in San Javier police jurisdiction, La Mesa (Cundinamarca)
Crédits A. Andrade, December 2017
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-4.jpg
Fichier image/jpeg, 116k
Titre Figure 6. El Palmar Royal Road, private land seizures and loss of the alignment due to scrub vegetation.
Crédits Municipality of La Mesa (2017)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-5.png
Fichier image/png, 2,5M
Titre Figure 8. Zoning of Tatacoa Desert.
Crédits Regional District with Integrated Management (DMRI-CAM) (2015)
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-6.png
Fichier image/png, 495k
Titre Figure 9. Announcement of restaurant service in Tatacoa.
Crédits A. Andrade, August 2017
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-7.png
Fichier image/png, 1,7M
Titre Figure 10. Pool that uses groundwater in Tatacoa Desert
Crédits A. Andrade, August 2017
URL http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/3715/img-8.png
Fichier image/png, 1,8M
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Référence électronique

Amanda Andrade Benítez, « Tourism Implementation, an Issue of Territoriality: National Approach and Local Action Methods and Resources », Via [En ligne], 15 | 2019, mis en ligne le 22 novembre 2019, consulté le 16 janvier 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/3715 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/viatourism.3715

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Auteur

Amanda Andrade Benítez

PhD (Geography), EHESS, Paris, Lecturer ESCE, Paris

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Traducteur

Université Bretagne Occidentale

http://www.univ-brest.fr/btu

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