Narco-marketing as a strategy for local tourism development

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing tourist interest in visiting places related to drug cartels in Latin America, where visitors passionately enjoy stories of drug traffickers. This article defines narco-marketing as a strategy for local tourism development and analyzes the providers of experiences (ExPro) related to this illicit activity and the impact on the tourist-tourism strategies of Antioquia, Colombia. The study was framed in a mixed exploratory sequential design with a quantitative and a qualitative phase. In the first, a questionnaire was applied to a random population of 278 tourists who visited the Hacienda Nápoles Theme Park (Puerto Triunfo, Antioquia); while in the second phase analytical discussions were carried out with 3 marketing experts. The results indicate that the ExPro meet the expectations of tourists and achieve a positive economic impact; however, local government must support narco-marketing as tourism strategies for local economic development.