The role of the federal and state-level government, of the national intelligentsia, and of
the local entrepreneurial bourgeoisie in the development of ethnic tourism in Mexico has been
complex. This study focuses on the Maya culture area in the Chiapas highlands, in and around
the mestizo-dominated city of San Crist6bal de las Casas. Locally, the government has acted as a
general modernizing agent and thus prepared the ground for ethnic tourism. But the development
of a specific tourist infrastructure and the marketing of Mayas has been largely a response of the
local mestizo bourgeoisie to a burgeoning new economic niche.