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03 MAR 2009: Mexico is taking a bit of a beating right now - quite unnecessarily. The Department of Foreign Affairs updated its travel report on Mexico last week recommending Canadians “exercise a high degree of caution when travelling to certain areas in Mexico along the US border such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez.” This started a clamour about “official warnings” and “unsafe conditions” in Mexico. Not so – these are not major tourist areas for Canadians who seldom venture there.
Peter Kent, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas) was quoted on Friday by the Toronto Star as saying,: “You can see that certainly the conventional tourist spots, the major tourist locations, don’t have any more risk involved than at normal times”.
Mexico is one of Canada’s preferred travel destinations. Canadian travel to Mexico increased 20% in 2008 from 952,810 to 1,144,650. Worldwide Mexico ranks number 10 for international travel and is expected to increase its market share by 2010.
Today, Mexico says, it offers some of the best value ever for Canadians. The increased value of the Canadian dollar compared to the Mexican peso gives Canadian visitors “high quality for less”, making it at attractive destination in difficult economic times.
Short travel times between Canada and Mexico with direct flights within 5 hours, plus the diversity in warm sunny destinations year round combined with culture, history and adventure are a great incentive for Canadians to keep travelling to Mexico in this 2009.
A double standard?
Two travel alerts were also sent out by the US State Department warning travellers about an increase in crime in border cities in Baja California and Sonora were criticized by David Rojas, general director of the Mexicali COTUCO, the Convention and Visitor Bureau. The warnings, he said, are really negative advertising to prevent American citizens from crossing to Mexico and spending their dollars there.
Rojas, who promotes tourism in Los Algodones, Mexicali and San Felipe, said it was obvious that the economic crisis in the US is the reasoning behind curtailing American tourism in order to prevent dollars being spent in Mexico.
“We are not minimizing the violence that exists in our country but we are doing well,” Rojas said pointing out that there is violence in the US as well.
“We know that in Las Vegas there were 4,000 crimes committed and that in San Diego several people have been kidnapped and nothing is said and no one is alerted,” he said.
Rojas said local, state and federal agencies on safety worked cooperatively to provide a safe 2009 Caribbean Series, an international baseball tournament that takes place in Mexicali as well as past international expos such as Agrobaja, a farming and fishing exhibition, which will be March 12-14.
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