Arnie Weissmann
Miami Beach made it very clear in a viral video message to spring breakers: We don't want you. Not this year, not ever. If you insist on coming, we will do our best to make you miserable, hassling you with random bag checks, DUI checkpoints, restricted access to the beach, curfews and $100 parking. Step out of line in the slightest and there's a good chance we'll arrest you.
I have never seen a community give the finger to potential visitors quite the way that Miami Beach just did. To say that it was a breakup message understates the tone. It was more like a restraining order.
I showed the video last week at the South by Southwest festival at the beginning of a panel I moderated on the topic of community-based tourism.
The Miami Beach approach is certainly one way that a community can take control of visitation and is a cautionary tale for destinations that sense they are in the early stages of tourism-gone-wild.
But the panel discussion that followed demonstrated that many communities that detect early warning signals have turned the tables through collaboration among community leaders, local businesses and tourism interests.
Among those regions where communities have come together to figure out how to both increase the social, economic and environmental well-being of the destination and provide a more rewarding experience for visitors is Los Cabos.
The Los Cabos Tourism Board, which sponsored the panel, is the destination management organization not only for the well-known destinations of Cabo San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo and Todos Santos but for much of the Mexican state of Baja California Sur, including coastal villages along the Pacific and the Sea of Cortes as well as inland towns and the city of La Paz.
"This is a critical topic for communities," said the board's managing director, Rodrigo Esponda. Tourism is increasing in the state, exposing more and more geographical areas to visitation. To maintain a balance that both protects communities and provides the positive aspects of economic growth in a way that benefits everyone, including tourists, Esponda holds town halls and conducts surveys to assess sentiment.
"Divisions are natural," he said. To reach a balanced approach, he relies on statistics and data -- carrying capacity controls, for instance -- to ensure that everyone's arguments are factually based. For example, the number of people who can dive in Cabo Pulmo National Park is restricted based on what will ensure that the reefs and fish are protected.
But even with controls in place, the residents of Cabo Pulmo felt the destination was being too aggressively promoted and contacted Esponda with the message, "We're no longer in alignment."
Esponda pulled back promotions of Cabo Pulmo. "Tourism is fluid," he said, and decisions are often revisited and recalibrated.
Also on the panel was Juliet Kinsman, the sustainability editor of Conde Nast Traveler. Semantics matter, she implied. Whereas the travel industry typically speaks of products and destinations, "it's not just a destination," she said. "It's a home. A community. And 'community-based tourism' is not just a trend, not just a buzzword."
Rather, she said, it's about a visitor's presence helping a community. She warned about the danger of "social-washing," i.e., presenting a touristic experience as beneficial to a community when it is not.
Diana Flores, captain and quarterback of Mexico's world champion women's national flag football team, is an ambassador for the Los Cabos Tourism Board and was also on the panel. Her birth year straddles the line between millennials and Gen Z.
"Ironically, these are both the most-connected and most-disconnected generations," she said. "Connected globally but often disconnected from the present moment and from interactions with people."
As a result, however, they "are driven to connect, to feel belonging to a community. Tourism can open the door to opportunities. One value that has shaped me and others in my generation is leaving everywhere I go a better place than when I arrived."
Prior to the panel, Esponda told me that "destination management organizations have a big responsibility to listen to communities. Allowing them to affirm and assert their identity, based on the traditions and culture of the community, helps maintain a through line from their ancestors to their descendants without their values being derailed by tourism."
Allied Market Research has estimated that community-based tourism will grow at 14% annually to reach $2.14 billion by 2032.
Over the decades, some tourism marketers have insincerely promoted products using catchphrases like "authentic," "immersive" and "transformational." Community-based tourism holds the potential to fulfill these promises without social-washing.
When Miami Beach told spring breakers, "don't come," that was, in fact, an assertion of the community's will. But while slamming the door in some faces, they were also careful to suggest that the message was not intended for everyone and even offered the possibility of redemption to those they turned away. The video concludes: "Maybe we can talk when you're done with your spring break phase."
(The full panel can be viewed below.)