Amenity migration: the migratory phenomenon in mountain tourism destinations

Abstract

Since long time ago population dynamics in Argentina has been linked to migration. Nevertheless, scientists have concluded that no research has found migration to be due to positive attractors. Almost every research presents migration as the unavoidable outcome of constraining environmental conditions. Recently a new type of migration has come to be, linked with tourism, which has received the denomination of amenity migration, and has as its subjects people who, after being tourist in a certain destination, decide to come back to it as dwellers. They can stay either for the season or the whole year. This movement produces important effects in the collective profile of tourism destinations. This article intends to study demographic and social processes quickened in mountain tourism destinations by this peculiar kind of migration, with a case study in two Argentinean cities San Martín de los Andes (Neuquén) y Villa General Belgrano (Córdoba). Documental research and in-depth interviews with migrants as well as natives enables an preliminary understanding of the way this kind of migration affects socio cultural configuration in destination places as well as relationship amongst residents and newcomers and sustainability policies for local development.

Keywords

• Migração de amenidade. Destinações turísticas. Percepção. Desenvolvimento sustentável. Instituições sociais.