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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Cancun Comeback
 Mike Williams - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
| | Silhouetted in the glare of sun on sea, a worker walks toward a restaurant being rebuilt in Cancun, Mexico. The government has poured in aid to help the tourist-dependent area bounce back from Hurricane Wilma's depredations, but it's a struggle. |
Cancun, Mexico — Jesus Gomez Vale used to make good money working as a waiter serving cold beers and piña coladas to tourists sunning on this Mexican resort's famous beach.
Since Hurricane Wilma belted the area in October, however, he's had two big problems.
"There's not much beach and not many tourists," said Vale, 28, gesturing toward the rocks that were exposed when Wilma's 25-foot waves scoured away most of the sugar-white sand. "This time of year, this beach should be covered with tourists. I guess we're at about 20 percent of normal right now."
Although Mexican officials have poured massive resources into Cancun's recovery in hopes of completing most of the repair work in time for the mid-December start of the winter tourist season, there is still much work to be done.
President Vicente Fox had set an ambitious goal of reopening 90 percent of Cancun's 28,000 hotel rooms by now, but Artemio Santos, head of the Cancun Visitor and Convention Bureau, said the hospitality industry hoped to have about 12,000 open by Christmas.
The total should rise to about 22,000 rooms by mid-January, with the rest coming on line by May.
"The key is to work as fast as possible, and you can see we are doing that," Santos said.
Indeed, Cancun's beach strip is a beehive of construction and cleanup activity. A small army of workers is busy replanting snapped palm trees, erecting toppled streetlights and rebuilding shattered hotels and condominiums. Much of the debris left by Wilma's pounding has been carted away, and shops and restaurants are reopening almost daily.
But Wilma, which crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula on Oct. 21 with 145-mph winds and then hovered over the area for a thrashing that lasted about 100 hours, heavily damaged the 8-mile stretch of east-facing beaches that was the heart of Cancun's appeal.
"The first day we got here, I nearly cried," said Irvin Wenger, a Pennsylvania missionary who works in Guatemala and vacations often in Cancun. "We always loved walking the sandy beach, and I wasn't expecting so much damage. I'm afraid if they don't repair the beach soon, it could really hurt them."
That message hasn't been lost on Mexican officials, who have earmarked $20 million to pump sand washed offshore back onto the beaches, a project that should begin in January and be completed within six months.
Amid cleanup, lost jobs
The massive aid from the Mexican central government is a stark contrast to Cancun's recovery from Hurricane Gilbert, which made a direct hit on the area in 1988. Cancun was much smaller then, with only about 6,000 hotel rooms, and languished for months without power or much assistance.
After Wilma, Fox was on the scene immediately, bringing with him the Mexican military and thousands of utility workers, who restored electricity to some areas within days. He also pledged more than $3 billion in assistance.
The government's rapid response to Wilma was a vital move for Mexico's economy.
Tourism is the nation's third-largest industry — behind petroleum and remittances from Mexicans living abroad — and the Cancun area is the crown jewel of the market, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the $11 billion Mexico earns yearly from foreign visitors.
Despite the frenzy of rebuilding, many of the Yucatan's poor residents are still suffering.
Long a sleepy Caribbean backwater, the city of Cancun blossomed into a sprawling metro area of nearly 800,000 residents over the past two decades as Cancun's beach was developed. Poor families moved from the low-lying interior, giving up subsistence farms to work as security guards, waiters, cooks and hotel housekeepers.
While thousands of hotel workers are busy cleaning and rebuilding their properties, about 2,500 have been laid off. Meanwhile, thousands of small merchants who depended on the steady tourist trade are struggling to survive.
"We're doing about 10 percent of our normal business," said Severiano Nah, 24, who works at a small pharmacy in Cancun. "I know a lot of people who have lost their jobs, especially waiters. The government keeps saying we'll be back to normal by Christmas, but I don't believe it. I'm afraid it will take until next summer."
Fortunately for the Mexicans, properties farther south along a stretch of Caribbean coast called the Riviera Maya — considered a separate destination from Cancun — were spared Wilma's fiercest assault. Many hotels in Playa del Carmen are already back to near normal, and beach damage was less severe than in Cancun.
Officials said about 60 percent of the Riviera Maya's 24,000 hotel and condominium rooms were open by mid-December, with the rest scheduled to reopen by Jan. 1.
Cozumel, an idyllic island just off the coast from Playa del Carmen, was hit hard by Wilma's storm surge and may take longer to recover. But Cozumel's vitally important cruise ship port, which landed about 3 million tourists last year, is already back to about 80 percent of normal operations.
Travel agents brought in
Santos said tourism officials were keenly aware they must act quickly to counter the images of destruction that flooded international news programs in Wilma's aftermath. The Mexican government has provided $10 million for a promotional campaign, and hoteliers are bringing in foreign travel agents to let them see the progress in person.
Travel agents Sylvia and Charles McDonell, from the Canadian province of Ontario, came on one of the promotions.
"I'm afraid to say our first impression was that it was pretty depressing," Sylvia McDonell said, noting that Wilma had decimated the lush tropical greenery they saw on their last visit, in March. "But everybody is so nice. We'd hate to say don't come here, but we can't tell our customers that everything is normal."
But other visitors were more impressed, a good sign for Cancun's tourist-dependent economy.
"I think they're rebounding pretty well," said Anthony Miles, 36, a Charlotte medical worker who spent a morning shopping in Cancun after his cruise ship docked in Cozumel. "I would definitely tell friends they should come here." |
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