The spillover of LGBTIQ+ tourism drives specialized developments and improvements in public spaces
Puerto Vallarta’s Romantic Zone has established itself as a specialized real estate micro-market, according to data from the sector itself, where investment linked to LGBTIQ+ tourism promotes boutique hotels, tourist housing complexes, and urban regeneration projects in a central polygon of the city.
According to the Association of LGBTIQ+ Businesses and Tourism of Puerto Vallarta, the queer district covers 35 blocks in the Emiliano Zapata neighborhood and concentrates more than 170 establishments, including hotels, restaurants, bars, beach clubs, spas, galleries, boutiques, theaters, clinics, tour operators, and residential developments. This activity generates more than 7,600 direct jobs and 1,900 indirect jobs among the local population.
“Los Balcones, opened in 1982, and other historic establishments that would come in the following years such as the Paco Paco Club, the Blue Chairs hotel and Garbo Piano Bar, instilled in the LGBTIQ+ community the determination to confront the government and society of the time with a new reality and take the first steps to attract the national and foreign investment necessary to recover the so-called Romantic Zone and provide it with a new economy,” said Luis Villaseñor, director of the Puerto Vallarta Tourism Trust.
“Until it became the first queer district in Latin America,” he added.
Source: El Universal
