Tourism business and ethnic categories in a Mexican Town.

This paper presents data from a Baja California tourist resort to show that natives hold two kinds of ethnic stereotypes of tourists. “General” stereotypes attribute very general traits to persons and are used to explain the observed behavior of tourists. The unrelated “specific” stereotypes provide precise descriptions of what tourists want and how they act in business situations: they are used as guides to conducting business with tourists. Both kinds of stereotype are based on ideas learned from others or created anew from observations. Both are tested by observation or experiment. However, use of a strategy suggested by a “specific” stereotype can direct tourists into the stereotyped behavior. The resulting mutual accommodation between native and tourist may have the paradoxical result of confirming inaccurate ethnic stereotypes.