The emergence of the modern hotel business on the periphery

The case of Piura, Peru (1890-1954)

Abstract

In the extreme north of Peru, in Piura, a  region with an economic dynamic based on agricultural and hydrocarbon exploitation,  as well as trade; investment in this new economic area will be carried out in a timid manner, with both state and private capital intervening. In this transition, the establishments that were able to transform themselves over the decades, such as the Hotel Colón (ca. 1890), will coexist with those imbued with a modern hotel logic, such as the Hotel de Turísticos (1943) and the Hotel Cristina (1954). The private commitment to the hotel company was not always consistent with the expected returns, with economic difficulties being the common currency of the life of these ventures.
This work is part of the narrative of the history of tourism in Peru, but from a regional perspective. The objective of this research is to understand how the tourist logic is being built in the Peruvian regions, in this case, from an approach to a fundamental part of this industry, such as the hotel industry, which we carry out through a review of that kind. of “evolution” of local accommodations through the reconstruction of the future of the three cases stated above, during the first half of the 20th century.
For this research, a qualitative methodology was used, based on the existing archival and hemerographic sources, many of them dispersed, as well as on the scarce bibliography on the subject of tourism in the regions, especially in the one studied, in the period covered. Thus, based on a look at specific cases, an approach is proposed to a scarcely addressed aspect of the regional history, of an area generally served by its extractive economy.