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 Editorials | Environmental | June 2007 
High-End Tourism Growth is Criticized
 Sandra Dibble - San Diego Union-Tribune
Rapidly growing tourist corridors around Mexico's Gulf of California are time bombs that strain environmental resources and threaten the region's long-term economic potential, a newly released study concludes.
Conducted by the Mexico City-based Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, or IMCO, the privately funded study criticizes what it describes as developers' growing tendencies to appeal to the high-end tourist market through luxury hotels and golf courses, saying these have placed increased demands on the region's scarce water supply.
The study also is critical of the Mexican federal government's program to promote nautical tourism in the Gulf of California region through a series of linked marinas. The Proyecto Mar de Cortés, formerly known as the Escalera Nautica, “is based on a type of tourism that is inadequate for the regional reality,” the study says.
IMCO is a politically neutral, nonprofit think tank that focuses on issues affecting Mexico's economic competitiveness. The study was commissioned by the Mexican Nature Conservation Fund, which supports environmental groups across Mexico, including the Gulf of California.
“The idea was to better understand what's happening in the region, and to see whether the current economic logic has an economic future,” said Francisco Padrón Gil of the Mexican Nature Conservation Fund. “What this shows us is how this style of development is not economically competitive, and in the long run, you're bringing in tourists who spend less and don't recognize the value of the destination.”
Although completed late last year, the study was released last month to the Red Mexicana de Periodistas Ambientales, a newly formed group of Mexican environmental journalists.
The focus of the study is the Gulf of California region, a sparsely populated area that is rich in marine life and endemic species; 244 islands in the gulf were designated a United Nations World Heritage Site in 2005.
Developers have increasingly focused on the tourism potential of the region, and many areas have been experiencing an unprecedented real estate boom fueled in large part by U.S. customers. Just last week, a Spanish company, Fadesa, announced plans to build a $5.4 billion project in the small Baja California Sur community of Loreto; its plans include 6,500 residences, 7,000 hotel rooms and four golf courses.
At its current growth rates, the region's hotel rooms will increase from 31,000 to 400,000 in the next 40 years, the IMCO study says. The growing demand for four-and five-star hotels is causing greater environmental impact than more modest facilities, according to the study. With rising competition for clients, room prices have been falling, which means lower wages for local employees, the study said.
The Loreto-La Paz corridor is one of seven areas in the study that have environmental importance and development pressures. Also included are other booming tourist areas: the Tijuana-Ensenada corridor, Puerto Peñasco and Los Cabos.
Throughout the peninsula, “in terms of sustainability, the main problem is water,” said Rodrigo Gallegos, a consultant to IMCO.
The study singles out golf courses. The typical golf course uses enough water for a population of 6,000, the study said. Although many use recycled water, in some areas where there is not enough supply, the golf courses are sustained by fresh water drawn from local aquifers.
Although desalination has been touted as the solution for the peninsula, the current technology is still too expensive, IMCO's Gallegos said.
The study says local and state governments are doing little to control the rampant growth, and it calls for rules to regulate the development.
There are alternatives to the current growth, the study says, but “people are overlooking the fact that a sustainable development can be as profitable as a conventional one, the study says. “If nothing is done in the short-term, the region will get worse. The aquifers will be dry or saline; the coasts will be polluted; and with less biological diversity, the ecosystems will be broken . . . the bubble will burst.”
The study echoes concerns that have been voiced for years by environmental groups in the region.
“We are heading for a collapse of monumental proportions,” said Enrique Hambleton, president of Pronatura Noroeste, and founding member of the Baja California Sur group Niparajá. The study “is an alarming wake-up call for all of us.”
The growth in the region “is occurring without investing in adequate infrastructure,” said Richard Kiy of the San Diego-based International Community Foundation, which funds conservation efforts on the peninsula. In the “long term, this will only lead to the Baja boom becoming more like a Baja bust.”
Tourism development officials for the state of Baja California and the Mexican federal tourism development agency, Fonatur, did not respond to requests for comment on the study.
“The true competitive potential of the region has not yet been fully discovered, much less developed,” the study said. “There is still time to recover, but soon it will not be so.”
Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com |
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