Is Cancun Dazed and Confused with the Butler’s Life Cycle Model?

Vazquez Jbb,Puls Sl

doi:10.4172/2167-0269.1000221

Abstract

In Cancun, the widespread view of the local academia, business and government is that the destination has passed its maturity stage and has begun to show signs of being in its phase of decline. Coincidentally, these conclusions were performed based on Butler’s life cycle model of a tourist destination. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to check, with data from the last 15 years, if the available information on number of received tourists and the economic income generated by them, supports these claims. The intention is to demonstrate Butler’s proposal of 1980 regarding the life cycle of a tourist destination shows an association between the variables time, economic flow and number of tourists. Cancun’s case shows an association between the time variable, represented by the years 1999-2015, with the economic flow; and in a second example; it shows an association in respect to the number of tourists. The above is necessary, since if it did not exist dependence between different variables with a destination’s timeline, it would not be possible to argue the Butlerian postulate of the life cycle. To achieve this, we will establish hypotheses assuming independence among variables. The method to be used will be the formulation of contingency tables as support for critical analysis and probability value based on χ² better known as chi or chi square. The finding is that for the analyzed variables, it can be asserted that the tourist destination of Cancun does not show a significant decline, even though this contradicts the views of other researches and opinions.

Highlights

In the seventies, when the Cancun project was brewing in the Bank of Mexico, Richard Butler published an article in which he described, explained and exemplified with several case studies, “The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution: Implications for management of Resources” [1]
While businessmen and academics interpreted the reality of Cancun early this century, reaching similar conclusions, we find a similar position in FONATUR,3 the agency that had the mission to create the CIP4 Cancun itself
The main objective of this work is to demonstrate whether Butler’s proposal of the life cycle of a tourist destination can be validated with data representing time, economic flow, and numbers of received tourists

Summary

Introduction

In the seventies, when the Cancun project was brewing in the Bank of Mexico, Richard Butler published an article in which he described, explained and exemplified with several case studies, “The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution: Implications for management of Resources” [1] This pattern of behavior of a tourist area is based, according to Butler, on the concept of the life cycle of a product, where firstly, sales develop slowly, they show a high growth rate, they remain stable and they decline. At the turn of the century, we find a business sector and incipient local scholars that perceive Cancun’s reality, finding the application of those models useful for the interpretation and diagnostics of the tourist area. They identified and recognized the onset of symptoms of stagnation and decline. Business chambers leaders referred to these conclusions, academics popularized them in their articles and taxi drivers knew them by their experience

Objective of Study

Methodology

Conclusions and Recommendations