Tourism, employment, and sociocultural challenges in Piura: an analysis of gentrification and its impact on traditional culture

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the multiple impacts of tourism on the commodification of traditional Piura culture and the effects of gentrification on displacement. Although the department of Piura in Peru has a rich cultural tradition through its music, crafts, gastronomy, rituals, and natural tourist attractions, it faces pressures from the accelerated growth of the tourism sector, which is not adequately managed. The methodology used was a hermeneutical documentary analysis of academic and statistical sources. In the Piura region, tourism revitalizes the local economy, promoting employment and development; however, it generates cultural commoditization, displacement of communities due to gentrification, and job insecurity with informal employment. Sustainability as a way to confront gentrification demands policies centered on community self-determination with experiential and ethical tourism, seeking to preserve cultural traditions and thus prevent Piura from repeating cases that have occurred in the history of tourism development in other locations in Peru, where ancestral identity has been supplanted by commercial dynamic.