Abstract

CESAR DACHARY, Alfredo A; ARNAIZ BURNE, Stella Maris  and  CESAR ARNAIZ, Fernanda. The Caribbean and Central America: Cooperation and Development of a Multinational Tourism Economy. Estud. perspect. tur. [online]. 2020, vol.29, n.4, pp.1215-1231. ISSN 1851-1732.

The main processes of integration in different regions of the world have been centered on diverse economic activities. In the 90s, Mexico emerged as a tourist economic power in the Caribbean world, which was in turn seeking greater integration, following the steps of Central America, which is achieved with the creation of the Association of States of the Caribbean (AEC), whose charter was signed in Cartagena in 1994, managing to integrate 25 member states and ten associates. At the end of the decade the Memorandum of Understanding was approved on April 17, 1999 in Santo Domingo, for the creation of the First Sustainable Tourism Zone in the Caribbean, a fundamental fact that extends the vision of tourism beyond the traditional one, by integrating geopolitics and interculturality and integrating a clear vision that the economic axis of the Caribbean is tourism and the main threat to the future of this is the management of the basin, which should be a task of all Member States and partners. This pioneering project has been growing in the great diversity of States, languages ​​and cultures and has generated instruments and a very significant cooperation, since it represents the first model of regional integration and cooperation that has as its axis tourism. The Mayan World, the Mesoamerican reef and the Puebla-Panama Plan were consequences of this agreement and, in all of them, tourism plays a fundamental role.

Keywords : tourism; cooperation; integration; sustainable development..