By: Maya Carretta
Edited by: Emmet Paradis
What does it mean to be a good tourist? Is it enough to simply pour water from hotel fridges from plastic bottles into reusable ones, reuse beach towels, or not waste food? Are you thinking about what it means to be a truly sustainable tourist when you get to your all-inclusive resort in a country like Mexico, where they give more than they get back?
If you’ve even been on vacation to an all-inclusive resort, chances are you’ve been to Mexico. The region that houses the Maya Riviera is one of the largest tourist hubs in the country, stretching from South Cancún to Tulum in the state of Quintana Roo. The rapid development of many of these cities along the coast has necessitated the need for fast and sometimes poor infrastructure. This puts significant strain on local ecosystems and local communities. As infrastructure goes up, environmental concerns like deforestation and strain on resources increase as well.
Resort hotels produce and contribute massive amounts of waste, with Tulum producing 170 tonnes of waste each day, and more than two-thirds coming from hotels during the high season. More often than not, the waste that is produced, whether it be food, plastic, etc. is not properly disposed of, causing further disruption to local ecosystems.
Hotels and tourism are often hidden away in beautiful locations away from the problems that they cause, with research about Mexico’s tourism industry finding that authorities have been unable to protect the environment.
The rapid development of these tourism hubs has produced hotels and resorts void of any culture or charm, as the need for hotels increased along with the displacement of local communities, eroding and commodifying the culture that was present within them.
Displacement doesn’t stop at just the land, since all-inclusive resorts do not often hire locals, extending to job displacement for locals, creating economic leakage. A major concern produced by resorts is economic leakage, also known as tourism leakage, occurring when the revenue generated by tourism is lost to other economies. This happens when revenue is not going directly back into the Mexican economy, by hiring workers outside of local communities, and even employees from outside the country to fill roles that locals are equally capable of filling. They’re then forced to enter competition with other local businesses, all fighting for some form of income.
Economic leakage can also involve looking at who owns the hotels and resorts that people are travelling to, and even how people are booking their flights. For example, most vacation packages purchased through airline companies go through various phases. Most vacation services are owned by their own airlines, so your money goes first directly to the airline companies, and through all their different internal costs, eventually gets to hotel fees, transportation etc. This lengthy process can dilute the revenue that realistically, and in my opinion, should be going back into the Mexican economy.
What does the strain on resources mean for the economy? For those of you who don’t know, I am a Political Studies major. This semester, I have been taking an International Political Economy course, and we spent an entire section talking about green growth and, in that, resource decoupling.
Resource decoupling occurs when economic growth increases while resource use stays the same or decreases, benefiting economies because it can increase environmental sustainability by reducing the extraction pressure of finite resources. If absolute decoupling were globally plausible, it would help many countries reach their sustainability goals. However, rapid development through shaky infrastructure that heavily impacts the environment, and destruction to the environment directly impacts Mexico’s competitive edge as a tourist destination. This also means that the country “is failing to meet its international obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change.” A country like Mexico that has come to rely on things like tourism is now unable to look at and see the potential for resource decoupling, as they need copious amounts of resources to keep their tourism sectors running, while also destroying land and environment to create more space for hotels and resorts.
This in itself is related to another level of sustainability: forms of income. It forces many countries, not just Mexico, to rely on certain kinds of income that keep putting money back into their economy. While the tourism sector is just one of these factors, it is not an entirely reliable one, as there are high and low seasons, natural disasters, and as things continue to remain expensive, it can be hard for even middle-class families to afford vacations.
More often than not, we can lose sight of the privilege that we can have simply for being able to afford to go on vacation, let alone these all-inclusive resorts. But can we say that this is the best way to travel, or even the best way to experience the culture and atmosphere of the countries we have the privilege of visiting? With everything going on around us, it can feel natural, understandable even, to want to “get away from it all,” but maybe it’s time we trade in the all-inclusive resorts for stays in local communities and cities. Travel the region of Quintana Roo instead of just laying on its beautiful beaches and drinking our days away. Give back to the experiences that provide us with such life, so the world can keep experiencing the vibrancy that life has to offer us.
Image Citation: Jarmoluk. (2017). Holiday The Hotel Beach Swimming [Photograph]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/holiday-the-hotel-beach-2772359/
References:
Global Sustainable Tourism Group. (2025). What is Sustainable Tourism? Here’s the Definition. GSTC. https://www.gstc.org/what-is-sustainable-tourism/
Hynes, E. (2025 June, 28) What is Economic Leakage in Tourism (& How to Prevent it). Pina Travels. https://pinatravels.org/what-is-economic-leakage-in-tourism/#htoc-economic-leakage-explained
Miszczak, M. (2014 June, 2). How Tourism Has Destroyed Mexico’s Yucatan Coast. Matador Network. https://matadornetwork.com/change/tourism-destroyed-mexicos-yucatan-coast/#:~:text=The%20all%2Dinclusive%20resorts%20rarely,Chinese%2C%20with%20some%20American%20support.
Moguel, S. (2017 December, 21). Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico: Lots of tourism, little sustainability. AIDA. https://aida-americas.org/en/blog/costa-rica-panama-and-mexico-lots-tourism-little-sustainability#:~:text=In%20its%20report%20Alternative%20Development,on%20the%20Gulf%20of%20California.
West, C. (2024, September, 7). How to Combat the Mass Tourism and Sustainability Challenges in the Riviera Maya. The Restless Beans. https://therestlessbeans.com/mass-tourism-and-sustainability-in-the-maya-riviera/
Yucatan Times. (2023 April, 25). Environmental Damage: The Dark Side of Tourism. The Yucatan Times. https://theyucatantimes.com/2023/04/environmental-damage-the-dark-side-of-tourism