Resumo: Research on the positive or negative impacts of the tourism activity has gone through different stages. However, until now, this research has been limited to mentioning the impacts and their quantitative characteristics without achieving a deep understanding of their genesis and evolution. This paper examines how the use of ethnography, as a method, may allow us to understand and explain the attitudes and behavior of the resident population of a community in the State of Mexico with respect to a celebration that has managed to attract the attention of a significant number of young people. The method enables us to explain how a phenomenon whose impact could be described as negative for the population, is actually perceived as positive, since it does not alter or modify the traditional values of the receiving population.
