Most of the Remoters are going to visit Barichara for the first time, and visiting remote unexplored places in a responsible way is part of our mission. But even small off-the-beaten-path destinations are threatened with problems common in big cities, like gentrification, the process of “elitization” of a place.
Colombian Tourism Researcher Luz Andrea Cote alerts about the risks that tourism could bring to Barichara in her academic article Tourism, gentrification and patrimonialization of crafts in Barichara, “the most beautiful village in Colombia” (pages 75-89 in this link).
“It’s often that intellectuals, artists and cultural actors become involuntary agents of a first stage of gentrification”, says Cote. The study was published in Spanish in the book El turismo en el mundo rural ¿Ruina o consolidación de las sociedades campesinas e indígenas? (Tourism in the rural world: Ruin or consolidation of peasant and indigenous societies).
The organizers are Claudio Milano, speaker at REMOTE Costa Rica 2018, and Jordi Gascón, and the book was published with the support of REMOTE’s new academic partner The Ostelea – School of Tourism & Hospitality, from Spain.
