Mexico Tourist Tax Creates Southern Discomfort

A $15 tourist tax that all foreign visitors traveling 30 miles or more south of the Mexico border will have to pay starting July 1 has the town of Ensenada in an uproar.

Mayor Daniel Quintero and the local chamber of commerce fret that the tariff will wreck the local economy by putting a damper on tourism to the weekend destination popular with revelers, campers and fishing enthusiasts.

In a letter May 8 to Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo protesting the tariff, Quintero noted that the overwhelming majority of the half a million annual visitors who motor to his town 70 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border don’t spend much money as it is. They average $80 to $120 per visit, including gas and tolls, and typically spend less than 24 hours there.

Making a case that Ensenada visitors--whether they come by land or sea--will react negatively by the “entry” tax, Quintero wrote that a third of all U.S. visitors to his city earn wages below what the government considers the poverty line, a statistic that probably reflects the high number of students who visit.

Finally, Quintero noted how important tourism is to his city, pointing out that 57% of Ensenada’s wage earners depend on the $320-million hospitality industry.

Proceeds from the tax, which will be assessed on all foreign visitors entering Mexico beyond a designated frontier zone, will total an estimated $120 million a year. The funds will be used to promote Mexican tourism and to modernize immigration systems. Visitors to Tijuana and Rosarito are exempt from the tax because those cities are in the designated frontier zone.

Quintero asked Zedillo to classify all of Baja, for purposes of the tax, as a frontier zone and therefore exempt from the fee.