As chairman of Otavalo's trade association, he hears success stories from every sector — and by his estimate, some 80 percent of the local economy now touches tourism directly or indirectly. Even his own garage has felt it: tour operators investing in jeeps for tourist transport means more vehicles breaking down on the area's rough roads outside town, which means more work on his bench.
Tourism has made the town more punctual out of necessity — visitors expect it — and that habit has turned out to be useful well beyond tourism itself. It's also shifted the balance of respect between communities: as Indigenous Otavaleños have grown economically stronger through tourism income, contact between Mestizos and Indigenous residents has warmed noticeably, with intermarriage rising as a visible result.
Not everything about the shift sits well with him, though. The old solidarity between people — the communal mingas where everyone worked side by side — has largely faded as people have grown more financially independent and less reliant on each other. Halloween is celebrated with more enthusiasm these days than some of the traditional holidays it's crowded out, a trend he says increasingly worries people.
Tourism can have a lot of positive influence, but it should not make us forget about our own traditions.
He also sees tourism, particularly backpacker culture, reshaping the mentality of local youth — more liberated, less deferential to parents, drawn toward drugs in ways that create real friction at home. Media plays its part too, he's careful to note, but he'd still like visitors to reckon with the influence their own behaviour carries.
Business itself has been shaky lately, hurt by the national economic crisis and by tourism that he thinks has simply been poorly organised. The Saturday Poncho Market is now practically the only draw, meaning the entire sector survives on roughly four days a month. The municipality, in his view, does almost nothing to broaden that beyond fabric sales — leaving it to entrepreneurs themselves to build something wider, or risk losing tourism here altogether.
“Tourism is like a tender bird,” he says. “Hold it too tightly and it chokes. Hold it too loosely and it escapes.”