In Mexico’s Copper Canyons, Tarahumara Indians can now sell crafts to trainloads of visitors, but lose their privacy as adventure-seeking tourists hike deep into their canyons. New highways and a proposed airport are further boosting access to this once-remote terrain. Photograph by Jonathan Tourtellot

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In “The Two Faces of Tourism,” TRAVELER takes a look at a force that’s changing the world—us. As we travelers fan out over the globe in ever increasing numbers, we are wooed by towns and nations, by mom-and-pop shops and international corporations. Sometimes this goes well: Locals prosper and move to save landmarks and habitats that attract the tourist dollar. But often tourism development gets out of hand, spoiling the qualities that attracted us in the first place.

Mexican government proposals for tourism development may change the pace of life for residents of Copper Canyons country. Photograph by Jonathan Tourtellot

Just south of the U.S. border Mexico is now planning massively expanded tourism into its fabulous Copper Canyons. Click here for just one sample of the complexities tourism involves there.

TRAVELER looks at tourism pros and cons from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to the mountains of Nepal. The good news: We travelers can make a difference both by voting with our dollars and by offering feedback, right here in our new Tourism Forum.

About the Tourism Forum

First, in the current TRAVELER magazine, read how tourism can improve a destination or destroy it. Then tell the forum how well or badly tourism is handled in places you’ve visited. Interesting restaurants? Ugly commercial strips? Care for the environment? Characterless hotels? Homey inns? Well-informed tour guides? Was there something done so well you wish other places would do likewise?

What’s your advice for tourism officials, planners, developers? What would make your visit more enriching? If your remarks are sufficiently interesting and provocative, we may publish them under your name in a future TRAVELER. GO TO THE FORUM.

Read the feature story “The Two Faces of Tourism” in the September 1999 issue of TRAVELER.