Tourism is a major economic activity with significant social, political and environmental repercussions that affect people and places in virtually every corner of the contemporary world. This study focuses on tourism development in Puerto Vallarta (PV), Jalisco, Mexico. The region has been almost completely transformed by this industry in a relatively short period of time since the development of the first major hotel in 1948. The article begins by discussing the development of PV as a place, as a coastal tourist resort and also as a set of quite different cultural landscapes. Building on this we specifically identify, describe and discuss some of the major cultural imprints of tourism upon PV, including hotels, restaurants, the gay community, art galleries and Internet cafes as well as ecological imprints of
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