Fewer days at the beach

By Marla Dickerson

Nov. 19, 2006 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Acapulco, Mexico —

Lounging poolside at her hotel on the Pacific Ocean, Donna Littleton recounted the highlights of her vacation: cliff divers, an air show, jewelry shopping and a tasty buffet.

But one element clouded her sunny mood: the memory of police with automatic weapons patrolling the beach.

“It makes you feel uneasy,” said the 48-year-old Georgia resident. “I doubt that we’ll be back.”

Drug wars and political unrest are taking a toll on Mexico’s tourism industry, one of the nation’s biggest employers and revenue earners. The number of international visitors to Mexico in the first nine months of the year fell by nearly 4 million, or 5.1%, from the same period last year, according to the latest government figures.

The drop has cost Mexico more than $200 million in tourism revenue this year, most of that from Americans, who make up the vast majority of foreign visitors.

The U.S. State Department put out a bulletin in September cautioning U.S. travelers to be aware of “the rising level of brutal violence” along Mexico’s northern border.

That alert was followed by an October announcement urging Americans to avoid the southern tourist magnet of Oaxaca. The city has been racked by nearly six months of civil unrest that has killed at least 10 people, including an American freelance journalist. The State Department last week expanded the scope of that bulletin, calling on Americans to “be alert to increased security concerns related to protest violence throughout Mexico” after explosives damaged three buildings in Mexico City in early November in attacks that may have been related to events in Oaxaca.

The biggest decline in foreign visitors -- more than 2.7 million -- has been among day-trippers to northern Mexico. Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo have been convulsed by a spasm of kidnappings and narcotics-related murders this year, spooking Americans who used to zip across the border in search of souvenirs, discount medications or a spicy meal. Their trepidation is hurting Mexican merchants who depend on their spending.

“We are barely holding on,” said Pablo Jacobo “Jack” Suneson, owner of Marti’s, an upscale boutique in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. He said scores of businesses had been shuttered in the Mexican border town, where more than 160 people have been murdered this year.

The migration of dollars is prompting Suneson to build a store in San Antonio so that his American clients don’t have to cross the border.

Some operators are lowering their rates to lure visitors to Mexico.

Littleton and her husband, Gary, got a weeklong vacation package to Acapulco that included airfare, luxury hotel, meals and other extras for $1,200 each.

They were accompanied by their friends Royce and Nancy Duncan. It was Royce, an Atlanta-area accountant, who found the deal on the Internet and persuaded the Littletons to go along.

Nancy, a librarian, said she was pleased with the bargain price on the nonrefundable package. That is, until she went online and started reading the crime coverage.

“I was not happy,” she said, relaxing in the shade in Acapulco. “But it was too late to change our minds.”

Her husband, who ended the trip with a digestive ailment, vowed that they wouldn’t return anytime soon.

“There are just too many nice places to visit without the seemingly inherent risks of Mexico,” he said by e-mail.

Fear of violence isn’t the only factor depressing Mexico’s tourist trade. The resorts of Cancun and the Riviera Maya, which are the country’s top international tourist draw, spent the first part of 2006 rebuilding from Hurricane Wilma. That reduced the number of cruise passengers going ashore this year. Tens of thousands of air travelers skipped Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula for other warm-weather destinations.

“The only thing missing is the tourists,” said Juan Carrillo Padilla, president of Cancun’s Chamber of Commerce, who said that virtually all of the city’s 27,000 hotel rooms were back in service.

Getting them filled is crucial for Mexico because the region accounted for nearly 40% of the $11.8 billion that foreign visitors spent here in 2005. Domestic and international tourism pumps $60 billion into the Mexican economy and employs 1.8 million people, according to government estimates.

It can take a few years for a destination to regain favor with travelers once it has fallen off their radar, some travel agents said. Chris DeRose, president of Villa Park-based First Travel of California, recently traveled to Cancun to gauge the recovery. She said the hotels she visited had been beautifully restored and that the stretches of beach she saw had borne no remnants of the powerful storm that devoured Cancun’s sugary sand in October 2005.

Still, she said, Mexico is proving to be a tougher sell than in the past, in part because other Caribbean destinations are cheaper, but also because of resentment over illegal immigration.

Her clients, she said, “are just getting irritated with it all and have told me, ‘I don’t feel like going to Mexico.’ ”

Foreign no-shows aren’t the only concern. Mexico’s domestic travelers have stayed at home in greater numbers in 2006. Some hoteliers blamed a poor summer season on June’s World Cup soccer tournament, which kept fanatics glued to televisions. Then came July’s presidential elections. The contest pitted leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador against conservative Felipe Calderon in a bitter slugfest whose outcome was uncertain for weeks until an election tribunal upheld a slim victory for Calderon.

Supporters of Lopez Obrador seized Mexico City’s historic center and blocked a main thoroughfare of the capital for six weeks to protest alleged vote fraud. Their encampment along stately Paseo de la Reforma, a major tourist draw, was largely peaceful, but business travelers and sightseers stayed away in droves. The protest cost local businesses nearly $750 million, according to some estimates.

Political tension has also scared tourists away from Oaxaca, the charming colonial capital of the state of Oaxaca. A May teachers strike and sit-in has mushroomed into a larger protest movement by groups calling for the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz after a heavy-handed police crackdown on strikers in June. The lengthy standoff and spiraling violence have all but snuffed out Oaxaca’s visitor trade, the lifeblood of its economy.

“In the center of the city it’s practically empty,” said Eduardo Garcia Moreno, president of Oaxaca’s Chamber of Commerce, who said scores of businesses had closed and thousands of workers had lost their jobs. “This is much, much worse than Hurricane Wilma in Cancun.”

In contrast, Acapulco on Mexico’s Pacific coast looked vibrant on a recent holiday weekend, with many hotels full and the beaches packed with merrymakers.

Still, tourism officials in Acapulco say the city is suffering from a wet summer, violence-filled headlines and under-investment by the Mexican government. Federal statistics show a drop in the number of visitors in the first nine months of 2006 compared with the same period in 2005. Figures compiled by Acapulco’s own local tourist board show a slight gain to just over 4.5 million people.

Whatever the actual number, some of the city’s hoteliers say 2006 has been nothing to write home about.

“It has been a tough year,” said Christopher Payne, general director of the Hotel Emporio Acapulco, a 419-room luxury hotel. He said this year’s occupancy levels wouldn’t match those of 2005.

Nestled on Acapulco Bay where the Sierra Madre mountains meet the sea, Acapulco boasts stunning topography and tropical weather year-round. Hollywood jet-setters such as John Wayne and Cary Grant made it their playground in the 1950s and 60s. Elvis Presley immortalized it in the 1963 film “Fun in Acapulco” when he sang: “This is no time for siesta, this is time for fun!”

But the venerable resort has lost much of its star power and is now mainly a weekend getaway for residents of Mexico City, about 200 miles away. Like an aging B-list player, it could stand some nips and tucks.

The toll road from Mexico City is one the most poorly maintained and the most expensive in Mexico, costing nearly $100 round trip -- a small fortune here. Acapulco’s main drag is potholed and choked with traffic. Raw sewage is making its way into the bay. Many of the hotels need updating.

The economic backbone of Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states, needs help modernizing its infrastructure, local authorities said. But they said they felt abandoned by federal officials who have channeled most tourism development resources into government-sponsored destinations such as Cancun, Ixtapa and Los Cabos.

“It isn’t equitable,” said Jesus Radilla Calderon, general manager of the Acapulco Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Tourism veterans say they feel victimized by publicity about rising drug violence. A number of severed heads have surfaced in Acapulco this year, most notably those of two policemen that were found with a note reading: “So that you learn to respect.”

No tourists have been hurt in the bloodshed, which many here believe is entirely narcotics-related. But the hoteliers and restaurant owners say their establishments are paying the price.

“Every time [a beheading] makes the front page, we get cancellations the next day,” said Marco Martinez, director of leisure sales at the Fairmont Acapulco Princess and Fairmont Pierre Marques hotels.

Tourism officials have implored law-enforcement authorities to get the violence under control to help them protect one of Mexico’s most important industries.

In the meantime, entrepreneurs are doing what they can to survive. Suneson said Nuevo Laredo recently did the tourism equivalent of making lemonade out of lemons by capitalizing on its dangerous image. It hosted a gathering of the only big group it has been able to attract in recent years -- a rally of hundreds of leather-clad motorcyclists.

Said Suneson: “They like a challenge.”

marla.dickerson@latimes.com

Times staff writer Cecilia Sanchez contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Rough sailing

Hurricanes, political unrest and drug wars have battered Mexico’s tourism industry, one of the country’s main sources of income.

Number of international visitors to Mexico*

(In Millions)

Total

2005: 76.7 | 2006: 72.8

Daytrippers

2005: 55.2 | 2006: 52.5