Residents’ Attitudes Towards Sustainable Tourism in Cancun

Abstract

This article analyzes local resident's opinions of the sustainability of tourism in Cancun. A random survey was conducted with 429 people and complemented with documentary research as a way to test fieldwork data. A descriptive and variance analysis (ANOVA) of results was run on the statistical program SPSS 25. Though Cancun residents proved to have little knowledge of the meaning of sustainability in general, when associating the concept to tourism their attitude was straightforward. They saw tourism as a favorable activity in economic and socio-cultural terms but less favorable in environmental terms. A more detailed analysis showed significant variations among survey participants according to their birthplace, educational level, and occupation, especially when the latter was related to tourism.