Since 2021, staff and students from the MSc Urban Economic Development (UED) at UCL’s Bartlett Development Planning Unit have studied the development trajectories and dilemmas in the Yucatán Peninsula in the context of the Tren Maya (The Maya Train), an ambitious development project involving a 1,554 railway across five states in Mexico’s south and south-east.
Over the last few years, a partnership with academic institutions, Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán (UADY) and Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), and with local organisations such as Co’ox Mayab and the Alianza Peninsular para el Turismo Comunitario (APTC), have led to the study, among other areas, of community-led tourism, a sustainable and inclusive approach to tourism offering an alternative to the predatory mass tourism characteristic of Cancún and the Riviera Maya. From the perspective of cooperatives engaged in community-led tourism, the arrival of the Tren Maya project presented both opportunities and threats.
Based on interviews carried out in 2024 (near the completion of the railway’s construction), this video brings together voices and viewpoints in relation to the dilemmas and opportunities with the Tren Maya and calls for project authorities to decisively commit to the strengthening of community-led tourism, as it did in a 2021 agreement that was left in limbo.
