Tourism Gentrification and the Resignification of Cultural Heritage in Postmodern Urban Spaces in Latin America

Abstract

This article presents a social and historical analysis of Barranco district in Lima, Peru, examining its evolution as a postmodern tourism destination. Through documentary analysis of historical records, guidebooks, press articles, and novels, we investigate the significant social milestones along history with cultural, and economic impacts on tourism development in Barranco. The research employs a methodology to identify key elements that have shaped Barranco’s trajectory from a fishing settlement to a bohemian district in a lively city and finally to its status as a “hipster” neighbourhood. Drawing on postmodern tourism theory and Hawley’s socioeconomic development theory, we argue that Barranco represents a distinctive case of how cultural capital transforms and resignifies tourism spaces through complex identity processes. Findings reveal that Barranco’s development follows three clear phases: rural settlement (until the 19th century), seaside resort (mid-19th century to 1940s–60s), and urban district with postmodern tourism appeal (1990s onward). The study concludes that while Barranco’s bohemian and artistic identity has become a distinctive tourism asset, the district faces gentrification challenges that threat its sociocultural diversity and authenticity. This research contributes to understanding how postmodern tourism influences territorial identity transformation and illuminates the social, historical, and economic forces that shape distinctive urban tourism destinations.

1. Introduction

Barranco is one of the 43 districts that comprise metropolitan area of Lima, the capital of Peru. Despite being the third smallest district in size and the sixth least populated in Lima [1], Barranco possesses distinctive characteristics that to be considered as a unique ndrtourism destination. Unlike most Lima districts that were established in the 20th century, Barranco was founded in the 19th century—specifically in 1874 [2]—giving it a historical richness that distinguishes it from its neighbouring areas.

What makes Barranco particularly noteworthy in contemporary urban tourism discourse is, its recent recognition as Peru’s “coolest” or “hipster” district according to international publications such as Time Out [3] and Yahoo [4]. The district has been featured as the “Indispensable” neighbourhood of Lima in National Geographic [5] and described as a “Bohemian and alternative neighbourhood” in El País travel section [6]. These characterizations consistently emphasize Barranco’s alternative, bohemian, and picturesque qualities, highlighting its urban art, art-galleries, artist workshops, traditional Peruvian eateries, and cutting-edge gastronomic and beverage establishments.

Tourism statistics underscore Barranco’s significance in Lima’s tourism landscape. By 2018, Barranco had become the third most visited place by Lima residents [7], attracting 26% of foreign travellers, although still trailing behind the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Historic Centre of Lima and Miraflores district that concentrates most of the hotel and gastronomic offerings.

Barranco’s evolution from its founding to its current “cool” incarnation presents a fascinating case study in urban tourism development. Despite being one of Lima’s smallest districts in both population and size, Barranco exhibits remarkable internal socioeconomic diversity with three clearly differentiated zones in terms of aesthetics, services, business, and especially housing bills. Despite these internal divisions, the district maintains a strong identity due to aesthetic, cultural, and administrative factors.

A social and historical analysis has been done as a contextualization of a case study examining Barranco as a postmodern tourism destination. The objective is to investigate the relevant socio-historical milestones with social, cultural, and economic impacts on tourism development in the district, employing a content analysis methodology. This research contributes to understanding how postmodern tourism forces influence territorial identity transformation and illuminates the social, historical, and economic dynamics that shape distinctive urban tourism destinations.

The theoretical foundations for this analysis rest on three key concepts:

1.1. Postmodern Tourism

Postmodernity as a concept itself emerged in the second half of the 20th century in Western Europe, understood in relation to—part continuous with, part breaking from—the concept of modernity. Bauman [8] suggests that postmodernity arises when modernity has been fully developed and becomes self-conscious of its impacts, potentially considered a self-aware modernity.

Postmodern society is characterized as permanently unbalanced, with any order or equilibrium representing local, fluctuating, and temporary phenomena. While fluctuating and temporally mobile, this process neither follows a single direction nor creates homogenization.

Postmodern theory views environments as complex systems—unpredictable and mathematically uncontrollable. Consequently, statistics, valued in mechanistic perspectives, hold less importance in postmodern theory.

Regarding tourism concept specifically, Cohen [9] argues that modern tourism has been superseded by postmodern tourism, where consumption surpasses work in identity formation, making tourism critically important in this era of maximum mobility. Cohen interprets that the postmodern tourist, accepting the loss of authenticity through globalizing homogenization, seeks “distinction tourism” with distinctive yet familiar experiences through sophisticated cultural consumption, often fused with local cultures, to increase their cultural capital [10].

According to Percoco and Vaschetto [11], the hipster profile perfectly fits in this description, as hipsters transform or “resignify” tourism spaces through their cultural capital. Bourdieu’s [10] concept of cultural capital, distinguished from economic capital, represents a fundamental differentiation in contemporary society.

Similarly, Zepeda [12] argues that “a hipster is someone who has that kind of plus that implies ‘immediate’ access to cultural goods since they live in this or that neighbourhood where everything floods with a ‘cutting-edge’ consumer experience,” resulting in this postmodern profile ultimately modifying the experience of the neighbourhood where they reside.

We understand that postmodernism functions as an important vector of transformations in a territory’s cultural identity, driven by the people mobility and imaginaries [13].

1.2. Hawley’s Theory of Socioeconomic Development

In the case of cultural tourism in Barranco, Hawley’s theory relevance is clear as it explains how culture and institutions are influencing the socioeconomic development of the area. Barranco is one of Lima’s most important districts for tourism due to its rich history, architecture, and cultural heritage. Hawley’s theory focuses on the role of institutions and culture in promoting economic and social development [14,15]. According to this theory, institutions enable society’s existence and are responsible for maintaining and improving the living conditions of its members. Culture, meanwhile, shapes institutions and defines the norms, values, and beliefs that govern social and economic life [14].

Hawley’s human ecological approach emphasizes the symbiotic relationships between cultural practices and economic development, particularly focuses on how communities adapt their institutional structures to environmental and social changes [12]. In the context of Barranco, this theoretical framework helps to explain how this district’s transformation, from a fishing settlement to a bohemian tourism destination, reflects broader patterns of institutional adaptation and cultural evolution.

Cultural tourism in Barranco is one of the main income sources of the area, enabling the emergence of institutions and organizations dedicated to its promotion and development. These institutions include the Ministry of Culture, Barranco Municipality, the National Institute of Culture, and the Barranco Artists Association.

The promotion of cultural tourism in Barranco has been possible due to cultural and institutional factors that have facilitated the area’s development. First, Barranco’s architecture and cultural heritage attract tourists interested in the area’s history and culture. Local institutions have worked to preserve and promote this heritage, enabling the area to become an important tourism destination.

Second, Barranco’s culture is among Lima’s richest and most diverse ones, allowing the creation of cultural events and festivals that attract tourists worldwide. These events include Barranco Art Festival, Barranco Jazz Festival, and Barranco Book Fair, among others.

Third, local institutions have worked to create quality tourism services that allow visitors to enjoy the area safely and comfortably. These services include guided tours, quality accommodation, transportation, and high-quality restaurants.

1.3. Tourism Space Evolution and Gentrification

According to Moscoso [13], a territory’s identity is a process related to the materialization of historically localized social subjects that ultimately conform the territory’s cultural heritage.

“Within this dialectic, revaluation is not always the result of collective appreciation by the resident community, but is linked to social, economic, and political decisions of a small group of actors, in many cases, external groups to the community itself” [13].

The concept of gentrification, though coined in the 1960s in London by Ruth Glass, was already discussed in academia in the 1970s and became public in the 1980s, with s particular focus on New York City. The process by which poorer neighbourhoods lose their residents to higher social classes had (and has) its ideological defenders, especially those closest to the real estate world [16].

In Barranco’s case, artistic influence must also be considered because it increases the space’s value and thus advances neighbourhood gentrification [17]. However, Janoschka and Sequera [18], in a comparative study of Latin American cities’ gentrification, specify that there are differences from classic European and American examples since lower or middle classes cannot be compared between these geoeconomic spaces. Informality represents a crucial point. Their study includes San Telmo neighbourhood in Buenos Aires as the most similar example—a neighbourhood with abundant cultural and heritage wealth that is gradually losing residents with lower economic capacity.

More recently research carried out by Liu et al. [19] examines how tourism gentrification in traditional spaces presents issues regarding public space privatization, transformation of public services to cater to tourists, erosion of community social bonds, and the commodification of regional consumption. Similarly, Hartmann and Jansson [20] highlight how gentrification processes are currently being shaped and underpinned by the normalization of various media platforms that define urban life, coining the term “geomedia city” to refer to social and cultural dynamics whereby certain norms, skills, and forms of capital (and thus people) are legitimized or marginalized in urban spaces.

Tourism gentrification has emerged as a significant theoretical framework, as Gotham [21] observes that academic books, edited volumes, and journal articles have increasingly engaged with this concept to examine linkages among tourism, gentrification, and socio-spatial restructuring. Before the 2000s, dominant gentrification theories rarely addressed tourism, whereas recent studies connect gentrification patterns to larger economic and political processes, including tourism development, urban real estate market deregulation, transnational corporation actions, and shifting global finance patterns.

1.4. Research Novelty and Contributions

Despite the growing body of literature on tourism gentrification in Latin American contexts, this research makes several different contributions to the field. Firstly, it provides a unique social and historical analysis of the district’s transformation from a 19th-century fishing settlement to a contemporary “hipster” tourism destination, filling a significant gap in the documentation of postmodern tourism evolution in Peru. Secondly, this research uniquely integrates Hawley’s socioeconomic development theory with postmodern tourism theory to examine how cultural capital transforms and resignifies urban tourism spaces, offering a novel theoretical framework for understanding territorial identity transformation in Latin American cities. Thirdly, unlike previous studies that focus primarily on European or North American gentrification patterns, this work contributes to the limited but crucial scholarship on tourism gentrification in the Global South, specifically addressing how postmodern tourism forces operate within the distinct socioeconomic and cultural contexts of Lima. The study’s methodological contribution lies in its documentary analysis spanning over two centuries, employing primary sources including historical records, press articles, and novels to construct a nuanced understanding of identity evolution in tourism spaces. Finally, this research addresses the noted scarcity of scientific tourism articles in Peru, providing empirical evidence for policy discussions on sustainable tourism development while offering a replicable methodological approach for similar studies in other Latin American urban contexts.

2. Materials and Methods

The socio-historical analysis is presented as a contextualization of case studies. This approach allows for understanding the evolution of the space and the various activities developed within it [22]. In this case, regarding the Barranco District as a postmodern tourism destination, this method was selected. The objective is to investigate all the implications of this context for the sociological explanation of direct and indirect socioeconomic, sociocultural, and environmental impacts derived from tourism practices in this Lima district. These impacts have been influencing both the host society and its stakeholders, and tourists and visitors themselves.

The analysis includes a strategy based on generating criteria that allow us to carry out a second step, consisting of identifying a chronological line with social, cultural, economic, technological, and environmental elements that influence the district’s construction. They have become the explanatory keys of the investigated phenomenon.

Our research employed a documentary analysis methodology requiring systematic identification and examination of diverse primary and secondary sources related to the social and historical evolution of the District. The documentary corpus encompassed multiple content categories essential for constructing a thorough understanding of the district’s transformation and Peru’s tourism development. Primary source materials included historical books specifically documenting the district’s evolution, digitized archival documentation of Barranco’s heritage housed in institutional repositories, and pre-1990s travel guides that provided contemporary perspectives on the area’s tourism appeal during different historical periods. Secondary sources comprised novels that captured the district’s cultural atmosphere across several times and scholar works examining Peru’s broader tourism history, which contextualised Barranco’s development within national tourism patterns. Particular attention was devoted to the National Library of Peru’s newspaper archives, where magazines and newspapers spanning the 20th century were systematically reviewed to obtain first-hand contemporary accounts and journalistic perspectives on the district’s evolution. This multi-source approach ensured triangulation of historical data and enabled the construction of a chronological analysis that captures both the macro-level socioeconomic transformations and micro-level cultural shifts that have shaped Barranco’s trajectory from fishing settlement to postmodern tourism destination (

Table 1. Primary and secondary sources for the documentary analysis.

Category	Source Type	Description	Time Period	Purpose/Value
Primary Sources	Historical Books	Documents specifically recording the district’s evolution	Various periods	Foundational historical documentation
Primary Sources	Digitized Archival Documentation	Barranco’s heritage materials housed in institutional repositories	Various periods	Official heritage records
Primary Sources	Pre-1990s Travel Guides	Contemporary perspectives on tourism appeal during different historical periods	Pre-1990s	Period-specific tourism insights
Primary Sources	Newspapers and Periodicals	Magazines and newspapers from National Library of Peru archive	20th Century	First-hand contemporary accounts and journalistic perspectives
Secondary Sources	Novels	Literary works capturing the district’s cultural atmosphere across various epochs	Various epochs	Cultural and atmospheric context
Secondary Sources	Scholarly Works	Academic examination of Peru’s broader tourism history	Contemporary	National tourism contextualization

Source: own elaboration.

).

The generated criteria, their content, their chronological development, and the identification of the relevant elements on which the analysis is based on can be observed in

Table 2. Chronological Analysis Framework: Barranco District Evolution.

Criteria	Content	Dates	Relevant Element	References
Socio-economic Development	Fishing area, rural and vicinity to the hermitage	Until 1875	Distant from Lima, with different Pacayares (rural estates) and fishing value until the creation of the hermitage with its settlement around it. The Lima-Chorrillos train in 1858 gave greater connection to the area with the capital.	[2,23,24]
	District creation and first urbanization	From 1876 to early 1900	It is given district status and different transportation means arrive, such as the train and the tram that made the Lima-Chorrillos connection.	[2,23,24]
	Settlement as a seaside resort district	1900 to 1940	The arrival of transportation means and the popularity of the Municipal Baths at the sea make Barranco considered one of the best seaside resorts, attracting upper class, upper-middle class, foreigners, and artists.	[2,23,24]
	Urbanization and fusion with the city	From 1940 to 1980	The 1940 earthquake causes the district to gradually lose interest for the upper classes, with housing for middle and lower classes being built little by little, which eventually unites it with metropolitan Lima	[2,23,24]
	Differential district for leisure and tourist attractions	1991 to present	Although it has been considered a monumental zone since 1973, it is not until 1990 that its eclectic and monumental architecture begins to be protected. This, together with its bohemian atmosphere, makes it increasingly seen as a tourist District.	[2,23,24]
Identities	Mysticism	Until 1570	Representation of Sulcovica through a rock on Barranco beach.	[25]
		19th century	Appearance of a light and an image. Creation of the Hermitage	[2,23]
	Popular festivals	From 1913 to 1958	The Barranco Carnival as the most socially horizontal in Lima	[23,24]
	The Sea	Until 1875	Initial fishing zone	[2,23,25,26]
		From 1875 to 1960	Seaside resort near Chorrillos (resort for authorities and upper class). Creation of the Municipal Baths.	[2,23,24,26]

Source: own elaboration.

.

This Table presents a comprehensive chronological analysis of district’s evolution across three interconnected dimensions: socio-economic development, identity formation, and tourism dynamics. The socio-economic trajectory reveals a clear transformation from a peripherical fishing settlement with rural estates (until 1875) to Lima’s premier seaside resort (1900–1940), followed by urban integration after the 1940 earthquake, and culminating in its status as a distinctive leisure and tourist district since 1991. This evolution was facilitated by key infrastructure developments, particularly the Lima-Chorrillos train connection in 1858, which fundamentally altered the area’s accessibility and potential development. The timeline of historical evolution and tourism in Barranco is represented in Figure 1.

However, the reality of tourism research in Peru is that it does not produce many scientific articles. Between 2008 and 2018, figures were below 20 articles in various scientific journals throughout the period [27]. This means that no specific scientific articles about Barranco were found. However, there are undergraduate (the vast majority), master’s, and doctoral theses on various aspects of the district.

The identity dimension demonstrates how Barranco’s character has been shaped by diverse cultural influences over time. From its mystical pre-Columbian origins represented by the Sulcovica rock to the 19th-century hermitage creation, the district developed a unique spiritual significance. Its demographic composition evolved from fishermen and rural estate workers to an eclectic mix of foreigners, artists, intellectuals, and upper-class vacationers during its golden age, later transitioning to working-class neighbourhoods while maintaining its artistic character and currently hosting a diverse population including postmodern and gentrified residents.

Tourism development in Barranco exhibits different phases aligned with broader socio-economic changes. The Municipal Baths era (1875–1940) established its reputation as an exclusive upper-class destination, followed by a decline period (1950–1990) when most establishments disappeared except notable exceptions like Juanito. The contemporary renaissance (1990-present) has repositioned Barranco as Lima’s bohemian cultural hub, characterized by bars, nightclubs, restaurants, and cafes, while coastal modifications have created new recreational opportunities through surf culture and panoramic boardwalk views. This evolution reflects broader patterns of urban tourism development and cultural district formation in Latin American cities.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Socio-Economic Development

To understand what Barranco district currently is, you must know the area’s development since the 18th century. During that time, it was primarily a fishing area, though with large zones called Pacayares dividing the territory. These were wooded or rural areas with some rustic construction. These constructions were all that existed until a hermitage was created in the place, which gradually led to the settlement of the space near it [2,23,24]. The settlement of the space near the hermitage, was driven by the creation of the train line between Lima and Chorrillos (the capital’s most important balneario), culminated in 1874 with the official creation of the Barranco district. A year later, the municipal baths were created, and although the district was later devastated in the War of the Pacific, it quickly recovered thanks to the arrival of the tram and the success of the baths. This made it one of Lima’s seaside resorts. The concept of balneario (seaside resort) is an americanism meaning “A place, generally located by the sea or a river, where entertainment and comfort are provided to the visitor” [28].

During this period, the seasonal resort for the upper class was the neighbouring district of Chorrillos, while Barranco remained as a place where upper-middle class people and foreigners lived more permanently, giving it a somewhat freer and artistic atmosphere. The splendour of Barranco as a resort began to decline in the 1930s, following the global crisis of 1929, and was accentuated by the 1940 earthquake. This latter event, while prompting the modernization of streets and housing, contributed to Barranco losing its resort essence and gradually integrating into the city, a process that, according to Tong [2], culminated in that decade, although Tamayo [23] places it in the 1960s.

In the 1970s, the interest in protecting the monumental heritage arose, but it was not until the 1990s that its tourist potential was recognized and its bohemian essence positively acknowledged, as it had continued to be an area for artists [2,23,24]. Until the present, it has gradually become a “Cool” or “Hipster” district with a great variety of leisure and art businesses that differentiate it from the rest of Lima. However, the district gradually lost population between 2007 and 2015 [29], but has been recovering it since then, possibly thanks to the real estate boom in recent years. For this reason, the District of Barranco Cultural Plan 2016–2021 [30] sees gentrification of the district as a risk.

It can be understood that, historically, the district has had three defined stages: an initial rural type until the 19th century, another as a seaside resort (balneario) from the second half of the 19th century until the 1940s–60s, which is configured as an urban district currently having a postmodern tourist attraction tending toward gentrification [2].

Recent research by Sequera and Nofre [31] suggests that tourism gentrification is linked to broader processes of neoliberal urban policies and global tourism industry expansion. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has created new dynamics in tourism gentrification, as demonstrated by Iemura et al. [32] in their study of Kyoto, where they found that tourism gentrification caused population decline through displacement in the historical centre, while in outer areas, population decline occurred due to other factors not related to tourism.

3.2. Identities

The district’s development can only be explained by looking at its different identities, conditioned by various concepts such as mysticism, the sea, its settlers, politics, and popular festivals. Regarding mysticism, the district was initially a fishing zone due to its proximity to the sea. According to José Antonio del Busto [25], there was a representation of Sulcovica, a pre-Incan god (a room-sized rock), which was dynamited during the construction of the Costa Verde highway in the 1960s. But its beginning as a population nucleus is due to the construction of the Holy Cross Hermitage of Barranco, which has a mythical creation. According to Tamayo [23] and Tord [2], some fishermen from Surco in the 18th century saw a light, and upon reaching it, there was an image of a crucifix on the ground of a ravine. From this mythical event, a pilgrimage began in which “miracles” occurred. The hermitage was approximately operational by 1815, but certainly by 1835 [2]. The baker Caicedo, who was initially cured by a miracle there, began the construction of the hermitage and is therefore considered Barranco’s first neighbour [26].

If mysticism is important, the sea also has a basic importance in the district’s identity since fishermen usually populated the area. However, with the hermitage’s creation and the arrival of the train from Lima to Chorrillos in 1858, the area gradually became populated with other types of settlers. But its true development came from being one of the seaside resorts near Lima, implying its proximity to the sea [23]. This use was definitively established with the construction of the Bridge of Sighs to directly reach the Hermitage and the Municipal Baths between 1875–78 as major milestones in the district’s beginning. According to Tord [2], the municipal baths (1876) consisted of an area built over the sea creating an “artificial beach” for sea bathing, with a bar and a dance floor (this already in the early 20th century with its 1913 remodelling) as well as changing cabins. One could reach it via the bath descent (under the Bridge of Sighs) and with a funicular created in the late 19th century. It was Barranco’s attraction, known by Lima’s high society. It was not until the 1960s when, artificially, with architect Aramburu’s idea, what is known as the Costa Verde began, which is to give Lima a fast road as well as sand beaches. This was created through artificial breakwaters and much earth extracted from the construction of a fast road in the city. Until then, only Chorrillos had beaches, and the rest only had ravines with small rocky beaches [33]. However, these sand beaches gradually turned to rocky beaches, which, combined with the particularly cold water temperature (due to the Humboldt Current), made them a surfing spot [23].

The sea and mysticism are initial identity signs, but undoubtedly, its identity is also created thanks to its settlers. From fishermen, clerics, and people related to the hermitage, it gradually, at the end of the 19th century, began to receive middle-class people or foreigners who lived there all year, unlike in Chorrillos where they went more seasonally [34]. In 1913, there were 6% of foreigners registered [23]. In the first third of the 20th century, it became the most sought-after seaside resort, and artists and intellectuals of the time arrived. Barranco’s “joy” according to Beingolea [35] comes from the rugged terrain, the cheerfully painted bridge, and that, being a summer area, people took etiquette less seriously, especially compared to the neighbouring resort of Chorrillos, where the great politicians of the time went. Barranco was seen in those early 20th century days as a place not as busy as Miraflores nor as populated and “rigorous” as Chorrillos, thus attracting both foreigners and artists and writers to live there [24]. The importance of festivities is mentioned, with a significant district milestone being the carnival celebration where all social classes gathered in the Municipal Park [2], which was a space for music and romance with retretas (open-air concerts offered by bands that came from Chorrillos). The carnival was celebrated from 1913 to 1958 (the year it was prohibited throughout the country) with municipal participation and at the request of several district children [2]. It was considered the most important in the city [23].

Continuing with the importance of its settlers, the 1940 earthquake allowed for modernizing the streets and certain district services but led to new constructions for the working classes in 1957 [24] that definitively united it with the city. However, although the upper classes mostly left the middle classes and, especially, artists remained in the space. These variations over time make unique examples of architecture in Lima appear in the district. From the initial “rancho” type dwellings that were an architectural contribution from Barranco to the architectural typology, to colonial-type constructions but with neoclassical influences that occurred before the 20th century [24]. Throughout the 20th century, according to Tamayo [23], there have been mansions and palaces of Italian, French, Tudor, Breton, Norman, Alpine, Republican, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Mediterranean, Liberty, Arts and Crafts types and various fusions. This architectural space, unique in Lima, combined with that bohemian current typical of resident artists, gradually made it considered an interesting place to live and visit.

In the 1990s, ending the era of internal conflict in Peru, Barranco began to add more and more leisure places, from the entertainment bar “La Noche de Barranco” to “Peñas” like “La Oficina” becoming a reference in Lima’s nightlife [36]. Curiously, the district is currently very heterogeneous, having one of Lima’s most expensive areas, which is the closest area to the sea. Another middle-class area, with a population that has been living there for many years, in some cases even in poorly preserved mansions, and an area (bordering the districts of Santiago de Surco and Chorrillos) where residents with a very high poverty index live and where “higher records of activities linked to assaults, family violence, and gang activity” [37] occur. Interestingly, the barrier to this last area ended up being almost physical, with the arrival of the Metropolitano (Lima’s public transport system, inaugurated in 2010, which consists of creating exclusive lanes for buses) that is carried out on Francisco Bolognesi Avenue. Given the characteristics of the area for all the aforementioned, there is an attraction to another type of person, with a postmodern profile, which we could even label as Hipster. Young middle-class person with alternative tastes of cultural avant-garde, a “vintage” aesthetic, and a progressive mentality concerned with sustainability [11]. This makes sense since Barranco has also been labeled as a Hipster neighbourhood in 2015 [4]. If we look at other “Hipster” attraction points, we see similarities with the Malasaña neighbourhood in Madrid, which also became “modern” through its bar or party area [38].

From Brito Arrieche’s [39] perspective, a district identity exists through a personal imaginary that ultimately configures a “spatial hologram” represented in the same walkable space of the district. The author emphasizes that the district’s identity is being transformed by power groups that seek to attract a “hipster” visitor or resident for the district’s bohemian and traditional values. Faced with this, traditional residents begin to feel the discomforts this brings, such as the increased cost of living, but at the same time feel pride and an increase in their “status” for being from the district. However, according to several studies such as García Herrera [40] or Rivas García [41], residents have great ignorance and/or disinterest in their district’s heritage, which they do not adequately value for its conservation.

One of the points defended by Brito Arrieche [39] is that real estate companies are taking advantage of the concept of a bohemian neighbourhood to sell apartments. She gives several examples, which can be confirmed with the current situation in which real estate companies like V&V on their blog talk about Barranco “being considered the most romantic and bohemian in the city of Lima” [42] curiously making a brief summary of its history in another post writes:

“On the other hand, if art and culture are your thing, this has to be your next home. The variety of events, museums, fairs, theatres, and other cultural proposals that this district constantly offers is incredible. Although not only that, because apart from finding a lot of history and tradition; Barranco also houses the best restaurants, cafes, and bars in the city. Entertainment here is assured.”

[43]

Or the real estate company T&C that in the brochure for their “Aspiria” building comments the following: “Near the bohemian, artistic, and cultural heart of the district, this project proposes an immersion into the best that Barranco life offers us. (...) Ready to start breathing the experience of living in Barranco?”

[44]

Finally, it should be noted that Barranco’s political identity has been diverse since its foundation, since, despite the foundation being in 1874, from 1894 to 1971 the district was called San Jose de Surco, being united until 1929 with the current district of Santiago de Surco. Curiously, in Decree Law 19004 of 19 (recovery of the name of Barranco), it explains that it is given for tradition and because the name of San Jose de Surco was very similar to that of Santiago de Surco.

3.3. Tourism as an Evolution of Development and Identities

In Barranco’s identity, we can already see many of the basic points that the district has in its tourism aspect, such as the sea and its tourism and leisure services framed in the eclectic and differential architecture.

Undoubtedly, the sea has been crucial and was the first differential attraction, being as explained one of Lima’s seaside resorts, with the municipal baths gaining tremendous importance as they were a focus of attraction for the capital’s wealthy classes until the mid-20th century. These baths allowed the use of the sea because at that time, there was almost no space between the natural ravine and the Pacific Ocean, with small rocky beaches. Which, in the 1920s, which were public, also saw the first steps of Peruvian surfing, many years before Hawaiian boards arrived [45]. This sport has been important on its beaches since then until today.

But with the creation of the Costa Verde in the 1970s, Barranco had a moment of incipient sun and beach tourism [46] although it never became differential due to the loss of sand and the coldness of its waters. There are different relationships between coastal destinations, and Barranco has a very original one, differentiated from others found in Spain or Latin America [47].

Currently, despite not being the district’s main attraction, it has imprinted a certain differential character over time. If at the beginning of the 20th century, they gave it a European air [2], in the 1970s, it is compared with the Olinda area on the outskirts of Recife (Brazil) or with Sausalito near San Francisco for its proximity to the sea, old houses. So it is understood that Barranco can be like them and that it can attract tourists (initially national) with projects such as hotels, reconstruction of the baths, and peñas [46]. Therefore, Barranco’s distinctive aesthetic and monumental character constitutes its main tourist attraction today, complemented by a varied offer of tourism and leisure services.

This begins with its boom as a seaside resort, at the end of the 19th century, in which Barranco has 8 pulperías (meeting places for middle/lower classes), 2 billiards, and a hotel in 1887, being in 1921: 8 cafes, 2 confectioneries, 2 hotels, 2 restaurants, and 3 inns [2]. So it is a district with different establishments, although most visitors stayed in vacationers’ rooms and upper-class summer houses. The establishments were lost from the 1940s since in the review of various travel and tourism guides from the 1950s and 1960s. No restaurants or party halls were found in Barranco except the Night club in the Lagoon. However, there are quite a few in Miraflores, San Isidro, and especially in the Cercado of Lima. Something that is confirmed in an article by Hinostroza [48] that talks about the decline of Barranco in the 1960s. Then only the eternal Juanitos (still functioning) and a Yugoslavian bar were found and talks about how the Lagoon had to close due to a scandal, which according to Rodrigo Fernández [26] occurred due to a homosexual party in 1959. Despite this, in the late 1950s, a zoo was created in the district (curiously in the Lagoon area) with native animals and others brought from outside such as a lioness, a panther, an elephant, or a hippopotamus; the zoo was closed in 1964 due to maintenance problems, sending the animals to the newly created Park of Legends, the national zoo [2].

From the 1990s, after a very dark period in Peru with the internal conflict, the Bridge of Sighs and the Bath Descent [49] were declared an official tourist zone, which is still improved with the creation of a sea viewpoint area [23] where different gastronomic businesses are gradually being created. In parallel, the creation of nightlife spaces such as “La Noche” [36] that complemented the creole peñas that already had tradition in the district [46].

In the concerted development plan made for 2021 [50], it talks about the district’s tourism potential, “for its historical tradition, its cultural heritage, and its bohemian spirit” explaining that heritage must be worked with for its development.

Currently, one of the district’s strengths is the offer of bars, restaurants, cafes, or pubs as can be seen in the articles of “National Geographic” or “El País” as well as its bohemian and “indie” air, although however the district is much more complex.

Recent research by Nilsson et al. [51] analysing residents’ perceptions of tourism gentrification in traditional industrial areas highlights issues regarding public space privatization, transformation of public services to cater to tourists, erosion of community social bonds, and the commodification of regional consumption. Their findings suggest that advanced gentrification processes associate with public space dissatisfaction and decreased use by children and families, while also noting lower trust levels, increased delinquency, and greater insecurity sense. Similarly, Hartmann and Jansson [20] argue that contemporary gentrification processes are increasingly shaped by media platforms that define urban life, creating what they call “geomedia cities” where certain norms, skills, and forms of capital legitimize specific populations while marginalizing others.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also influenced tourism gentrification patterns. According to Dou et al. [52], the pandemic severely affected Chinese tourists’ willingness to travel, with a decline of over 50% from 2020 to 2022 compared to 2019, and although a rebound was observed in 2023, it had not returned to pre-pandemic levels. These disruptions to global tourism flows have temporarily paused gentrification processes in some locations while intensifying them in others as tourism patterns shifted toward domestic destinations. Iemura et al. [32] found that in Kyoto, Japan, the pandemic forced many accommodations to close, potentially providing an opportunity to achieve more sustainable tourism with a better balance between resident housing and tourist accommodations.

4. Conclusions

This study has shown how an specific district of Lima, has undergone an original transformation. Its initial settlement as a fishing area was religious, with the construction of the Hermitage, which was modified to that of a seaside resort with tourism from the late 19th and early 20th centuries with a substantial difference to its neighbours that attracted on one hand the highest society (Chorrillos) to a larger population (Miraflores), with Barranco being the resort of part of high society, but with a large number of foreign persons and artists who modified its space and environment. The end of this era, which begins with the Crash of 1929 and was exacerbated by the earthquake of 1940, coincides with the urban expansion of Lima that reaches the district. In this era, it is abandoned by high society, but the artistic and bohemian aspect is maintained and consolidated until our days. Already in the the seventies, thanks to the Costa Verde and groups that tried to protect the district’s heritage, the tourism potential was discovered, but it is not until the nineties that it is definitively committed to it. In parallel, but with some of that influence, a rise of party places begins in the area, both modern and more traditional that ends up exploding in the second decade of the 2000s with a look from the global, but with local aspects that makes it a reference in postmodern tourism.

The district’s identity has been mutating, but without losing almost any of them (except the fishing one), the changes that have occurred have been given both by its settlers, the sea, by institutions, and in a last part by the private sector. The settlers have been basic in the bohemian and differential environment of its architecture, which makes it so attractive. Foreigners made spaces like some boardwalks with a more European style and differential mansions be built. Artists were the ones who contributed that vision of a bohemian and artistic place, also being the beginning of the process to become a party place through the Peñas Criollas and cultural bars like La Noche de Barranco. The sea has been basic, from its name, the boardwalks, and its initial tourism aspect through Surfing ending with aesthetics.

This attractiveness is causing a transformation in the district gradually modifying its identity. The role of decisions adopted by institutions is essential, but it is clearly influenced by the economic sector, especially real estate.

This new vision of the district, after all its tourism and identity evolution, comes with some major problems such as the Gentrification of a district that has many social facets and could lose them by being a focus of postmodern tourism. As has been seen both in European and Latin American examples, the transformation towards that type of tourism entails the loss of traditional businesses that are not gastronomic and the impulse of real estate to build in the district. This impulse is somewhat diminished by the heritage protection that a large percentage of it has, but it is like a shadow running through the future. Another point of importance is that Barranco is a very unequal district, with well-defined areas ranging from the richest class in Peru to almost abandoned areas with a very high level of poverty and conflict which has its negative part due to criminality, but also, in some cases, is part of its identity.

The transformation of the district, in addition to real estate, is given by its gastronomic business such as Bars, restaurants, cafes... These businesses should consider their role in the sustainability of the district and so that its transformation does not end with the identity and with the population that lives in it. Therefore, it should be studied in a much more detailed way if they have policies or activities of social responsibility.

This study contributes to the growing body of research examining the complex relationship between urban tourism development and social change. It aligns with recent work by Gotham [21] on tourism gentrification that focuses on how tourism can be both a driver and outcome of gentrification trends. Our findings support his assertion that tourism gentrification provides a flexible analytical framework to reveal the diverse ways tourism drives urbanization processes. Similarly, we echo Hartmann and Jansson’s [20] findings on how certain forms of cultural capital become legitimized in urban spaces through tourism development, creating new patterns of inclusion and exclusion.

This research has practical implications for urban planners and policymakers as they seek to balance tourism development with preserving local identity and ensuring housing affordability. This case presents a warning about the social risks that accompany unmanaged tourism development, particularly the displacement of vulnerable populations and the commercialization of cultural heritage, while still recognizing tourism’s economic benefits.

The application of Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) [53] as a model for tourism destination development presents an intriguing option through comparative analyses with other analogous tourism destinations. Furthermore, provided that additional research or sufficient data were available, it would prove highly valuable to undertake a study correlating economic growth, number of tourists, and environmental metrics, like the approach adopted by Bersatos et al. [54] in their application of the TALC framework.

Future research could examine more specifically how tourism businesses in Barranco implement social responsibility practices, the degree to which local residents participate in tourism governance, and comparative analyses with other Latin American neighbourhoods experiencing similar transformations. Additionally, longitudinal studies tracking Barranco’s transformation over the coming years would provide valuable insights into the long-term effects of postmodern tourism development on urban spaces and their communities.