Tourism As A State Policy For Local Development: A Comparative Study In Argentina, The Provinces Of Salta And Jujuy

Due to multiple variables, mainly the macroeconomic tourism activity in Argentina has been experiencing a process of sustained growth for several years. More and more foreigners and Argentines are deciding to travel around the country in search of new experiences. Such dynamics generates more and more communities throughout the country to choose tourism activity as a driver of local development. For specific purposes, tourism generates development expectations that converge in a proliferation of small tourist destinations identifying potential attractions among available resources and encouraging the creation of a range of services. However, it is worth asking: What does this tourist offer? How is the impact of tourism on local development visualized? What are the activities that are promoted as attractors for potential tourists? How is it conceived from the beginning? What is the state of the development and promotion of the tourism sector? These questions serve as inducers to evaluate the path established by local governments in order to analyse the presence of planning aimed at the process of growth of tourism and its economic, social and environmental impact. The objective of this paper is to analyse the different strategies designed by local governments and their articulation/integration into physical-geographical spaces with complementary characteristics, seeking to expose the degree of complementation and/or differentiation in the various strategies designed for the Province of Salta as for the Province of Jujuy.