Main aspects in the transformation of Buenos Aires province seaside into touring territory

Abstract

Hundreds of kilometers of the vast, sandy and soft sloping beaches of the Buenos Aires coast played a key role in the transformation of that coastal front into a tourist spot. This article will deal with the steady, though not linear, process that made up the holiday area of Buenos Aires province. To analyzed that process, there will be considered three intervening dimensions: the characterization of the seaside resorts and the building of roads –with its underlying ideas or intentions of projects and interventions– the policy design and the arise of a new sensibility. Here, we will focus on the 1920-40 period which, through the social and cultural transformations, paved the way for the arousal of tourist activities and the granting of territories for that aim, resulting in a process of mutual configuration. As a consequence of that process, the open and full of dunes Buenos Aires seaside became a touring landscape.