TOURISM

Forget cheap! That's the old Mexico. The new Mexico has fabulous hotels, great food and those same amazing beaches to sell and the prices are climbing to attract the wealthy tourists who can manage luxury surroundings.

MB, 2000119

In 1970, roughly 2 million tourists visited Mexico, spending $1.4 billion. Since then Mexican tourism has benefited from the vast expansion of jet travel and from increased world affluence. In this context, Mexico has been able to take advantage of its natural strengths, which include 6,000 miles of coastline, a fine climate, and the world’s sixth greatest biodiversity. Its diverse indigenous heritage, which ranges from Zapotec communities in Oaxaca to the Purepecha in Michoacan, forms an additional attraction.120

In 2008, tourism generated 2.7 million direct jobs. It is Mexico’s third biggest foreign exchange earner, behind only oil and remittances as legal sources of foreign currency. In 2008, 1.96 million worked in the tourist industry and the record 22.6 million foreigners who visited Mexico brought in $10.8 billion.121

In contrast to the rest of the economy where the government has largely bowed out, the government plays a major role in promoting tourism. The most prominent example of this government role is Cancun, which in 1970 was an offshore jungle island along the remote coast of Quintana Roo. Fewer than 200 people lived in the lone hamlet in the area, Puerto Juarez, which was so isolated that it lacked electricity, telephone service, and water and sewer systems.122

The development of Cancun resulted from Banco de Mexico officials deciding that in order to share in rapidly expanding international tourism by jet, Mexico would have to develop new tourist sites. Planners took an inventory of the Mexican coast and fed data on climate, water temperature, and beach conditions into a computer. The computer selected Cancun as the most desirable site. Government agencies then became in effect the governing power in Cancun. They dredged lagoons, expropriated and cleared land, and erected a complete city, with basic infrastructure, a golf course, and a central market.123

In 1975, a year after the first hotel opened, 99,500 tourists visited Cancun. In 1986 Cancun drew more tourists than Acapulco, and in 1989 it surpassed Mexico City to become Mexico’s most popular foreign tourist destination. In 2004 2.3 million tourists visited Cancun.124

Cancun and its international airport spurred development on the coast south of Cancun down to the Mayan ruins of Tulum and offshore on the island of Cozumel—an area known as the Mayan Riviera. The number of hotel rooms in Cancun and the Mayan Riviera reached 60,000, making it one of the Caribbean’s largest destinations. Jamaica, by comparison, has only about 17,000 hotel rooms. The state of Quintana Roo, which includes both Cancun and the Mayan Riviera, accounts for a third of Mexico’s annual tourist receipts. to rapid tourist development, between 2000 and 2005, the state’s 4.68 percent annual population growth exceeded that of any other Mexican state.125

The government continued to play a strong role in tourist development. Once Cancun was developed, Banco de Mexico officials facilitated the development of four other major tourist destinations, Los Cabos and Loreto on the Baja California peninsula, Bahias de Huatulco in Oaxaca, and Ixtapa on the Pacific Coast near Acapulco. In 1986, Mexican tourism minister Antonio Enriquez Savignac stated the government rationale for developing these centers: “Our goals are threefold. We want to earn more foreign exchange, we want to create more jobs, and we want to develop the more isolated and remote regions of the republic.” Los Cabos soon emerged as a major tourist center since it is only two hours by air from Los Angeles and offers a Jack Nicklaus-designed eighteen-hole golf course. In 2006, 2.7 million passengers deplaned at Los Cabos airport.126

Even though it was once rather simplistically referred to as the “industry without chimneys,” tourism has its downsides, including what might be considered the original sin of Mexican tourism. In many locations such as Cancun and Huatulco, the government expropriated land from the local residents, provided at best meager compensation, and in subsequent development only offered them low-paid wage labor. Infrastructure was developed at government expense, and land was then turned over to large corporations, many of which were foreign.127

Since sewage treatment is expensive and provides no quick return on investment, tourists and the workers who serve them have fouled the waters in many locations, especially those located on bay-enclosed beaches such as Huatuclo. In 2003, the Special Federal Prosecutor’s Office for Environmental Protection (PROFEPA) released a report that listed twenty-six beaches and coastal areas that it described as highly contaminated. Included in this list were several well-known Pacific resorts such as Acapulco, Zihuatanejo, and Puerto Vallarta.128

Relatively little tourist revenue finds its way into the hands of ordinary resort residents. As a result of low wages and intermittent employment, many people have no other choice than to live in the shantytowns that have formed around major destinations such as Acapulco and Cancun. Most tourist dollars flow to airlines and multinational hotel chains, not local service providers. Package travel deals, which include meals, make it difficult for local food providers to tap into the tourist trade. As journalist Marc Cooper observed, “Finding a small family-run Mexican taqueria or panaderia—a taco stand or traditional bakery—is much easier in downtown Los Angeles or Chicago than it is in Cancun.”129