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 Travel & Outdoors | February 2007 
Capital Gov´t Woos Tourists
 Kelly Arthur Garrett - Herald Mexico
Mexico City´s new government is wooing tourists with renewed zeal, offering international visitors free emergency medical care, beefed up police presence in tourist areas, and multilingual crime-reporting centers.
Diplomats from 32 nations gathered at the Mexico City Chamber of Commerce (Canaco) Tuesday to hear city officials outline steps being taken to overcome recent bad publicity and attract tourists to one of the world´s great cities.
Alejandra Barrales Magdaleno, the city´s tourism secretary, told the diplomats the city will soon sign an agreement with the national airlines that will provide all incoming passengers - foreign and domestic -.with information packets about the health and safety programs at their disposal.
Most of those programs were put into place at the beginning of February, and are designed to address tourists´ two biggest concerns - getting assaulted and getting sick.
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard announced at the time that 30 additional squad cars will patrol parts of the city such as the Zona Rosa and the Historic Center where tourists tend to congregate and petty criminals are more likely to prey on them. In those areas, officers on the street, including regular police and special tourist police, have been tripled.
Tourist police have special duties beyond protection. "Members of the tourist police forces are able to give information about hotels, police stations, health centers and any other facility that can help visitors," Barrales said. "They´re bilingual and their uniform is distinct and recognizable."
For those who do run into trouble - or witness a crime - the city has re-opened three "Special Agencies for Attention to Tourists," where tourists can report crimes in their own language, with prompt service. The three centers are located on the corner of Victoria and Revillagigedo in the Historic Center, on Amberes in the Zona Rosa, and in the Canaco building at Paseo de la Reforma 42.
Rodolfo Félix Cárdenas, Mexico City´s attorney general, said an Internet site will soon be available for tourists who have reported a crime to track their case.
Also, the city has come to agreements with three public hospitals to provide tourists with special emergency service in case of sickness or accident.
"Tourists will receive free medical attention, or if they prefer, they will be transported to a private hospital," Barrales said. "That makes Mexico City the only federal entity in the republic with this free service."
Ebrard and other city officials, along with private sector associations in the tourist sector, are looking to increase the number of visitors to the capital from the currently estimated 12 million per year.
The efforts were set back in 2006, the last year of the previous city administration, by election-year demonstrations, as well as a lingering perception that crime was rising, although the crime rate was still well below its mid-90s highs.
"The city´s policy is to take advantage of every available possibility of maintaining our natural position as one of the main tourist attractions in the country and the world," Félix Cárdenas said. "We want every visitor to feel confidant that the city government will guarantee his or her physical integrity and material well-being."
City officials are also hoping the streamlined reporting system will help them better monitor incidents of crime among tourists and obtain more reliable figures that will belie the "sensationalized" perception of criminal acts directed at tourists.
It´s currently estimated that there were about 200 incidents involving tourists in Mexico City last year.
Canaco president Lorenzo Ysasi Martínez noted that most of those incidents were minor, such as lost documents.
"There´s been an atmosphere of alarm that has no reason for existing," he said. |
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