The role of tourism in the regenertion of the Old City of Montevideo

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of tourism in the regeneration of historic urban quarters. It follows a case study design, focusing on the regeneration efforts undertaken in the Old City of Montevideo, Uruguay, over the last two decades. Qualitative data was gathered via semi-structured interviews from purposively selected experts, and from purposively selected policy documents. The data collected was analyzed separately through qualitative content analysis and then contrasted. The results show that there was a significant evolution in the policy approach to tourism at the planning level. However, the findings suggest that tourism’s potential for collaborating with the urban regeneration of historic quarters has been only partly exploited. The results provide some insights about the potential of focusing the regeneration of historic urban quarters in the development of cultural tourism, something atypical in the Latin American context. They also illustrate the necessity of improving the safety conditions of historic quarters as a precondition for their regeneration and raise some concerns about the consequences of overlooking the design of mechanisms for enabling the most vulnerable sectors of the population to access to jobs in the tourism industry. However, it must be acknowledged that this study is based on a small sample that does not represent all the stakeholders involved in the regeneration process. Further research in the aforementioned areas is needed. Besides, the findings are highly dependent on the specific context of the Old city of Montevideo.