page_title: Tourism in Mexico
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Tourism in Mexico / History of tourism / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of the Piedra del Sol with Porfirio Díaz
context_page_description: Tourism in Mexico is a very important industry. Since the 1960s, it has been heavily promoted by the Mexican government, as "an industry without smokestacks." Mexico has traditionally been among the most visited countries in the world according to the World Tourism Organization, and it is the second-most visited country in the Americas, after the United States. In 2017, Mexico was ranked as the sixth-most visited country in the world for tourism activities. Mexico has a significant number of UNESCO World Heritage sites with the list including ancient ruins, colonial cities, and natural reserves, as well as a number of works of modern public and private architecture. Mexico has attracted foreign visitors beginning in the early nineteenth century, cultural festivals, colonial cities, nature reserves and the beach resorts. The nation's temperate climate and unique culture – a fusion of the European and the Mesoamerican are attractive to tourists.
context_section_description: Tourism in Mexico developed following the establishment of the Mexican republic, with writings by Alexander von Humboldt, Frannie Calderón de la Barca, the wife of the Spanish Ambassador to Mexico; John Lloyd Stephens, and Edward B. Tylor being important for attracting more travelers. Tourists from the United States began arriving in Mexico in numbers starting in the 1880s, following construction of direct railway lines in Mexico to the U.S. border. General Porfirio Díaz became president of Mexico by coup in 1876, the beginning of a long period of peace in Mexico following decades of civil war.  With the inauguration of direct Pullman service from the U.S. to Mexico in 1884, tourists no longer endured difficult and dangerous travel.  The Mexican Central Railway actively promoted tourism in the United States, hiring a professional photographer, William Henry Jackson, to visually record the route and a professional writer, James W. Steel, to write promotional copy. Guides for English-speaking tourists were also published, most notably Terry's Guide to Mexico, which went through several editions at the beginning of the twentieth century. Mexico appealed to American tourists seeking an "exotic" holiday. It was promoted in 1890 as the "Egypt of the New World." With the 1910 centennial of Mexican independence, the government undertook an excavation and reconstruction of the Pyramid of the Sun at the huge archeological site of Teotihuacan, near Mexico City. A railway line was constructed from the capital to the site, bringing scholars from the 1910 meeting of the International Congress of Americanists.  In addition, the National Museum of Anthropology was refurbished in advance of the celebrations, in anticipation of tourists.  Mexico was a beneficiary of the increasing tourism of Europeans and Americans to distant lands.  In Mexico, many tourists brought home real or fake relics, and often left graffiti.
caption: Porfirio Díaz in 1910 at the National Museum of Anthropology with the Aztec Calendar Stone. The regime appropriated the indigenous past for patriotic and state purposes, including promoting tourism.
exif: {}