Tourism competitiveness strategies in the natural protected areas of Quintana Roo, Mexico

Protected Areas (PA) are spaces of unique or representative ecosystems of a region, which have historically been managed as ecological fortress, but should also be linked to social and economic factors, which together represent the key to successful conservation in the long term, integrating the triple bottom line of sustainability through culturally appropriate and ecological systems processes but driving competitiveness and raising the life's quality of people living inside or in the influence zone of these natural spaces. However, competitiveness has been associated with the mercantilist approach, so sustainable tourism development within the PA is very limited. From this perspective, the aim was to identify tourism competitiveness strategies applied in Protected Areas of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It was applied a triangulation with interviews to managers, review of the literature and field notes. Kay's model modified was the theoretical basis for collecting data from the PA administration and the results were classified as proposed by Porter competitive strategies. The results highlighted that most PA apply demarketing strategy; CO Isla Mujeres and Tulum apply differentiation and Sian Ka'an segmentation, although all support ecological and social sustainability, but economic is practically not considered. The economic subsidy to promote access, lack of environmental education centers, limited capacities of local actors and lack of coordination and consensus among federal, local cooperatives and ejidos are limitations to enhance tourism competitiveness. It is concluded that PA competitiveness strategies are implemented without the economic logic, whereby the foundations of sustainability is not integrated.