| | |  Editorials | Opinions | March 2009 
Bill O'Reilly Wrong on Mexico
 Latin Business Chronicle
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| | WRONG: O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly is irresponsibly wrong on Mexico, the Latin Business Chronicle warns. (Fox News) | 
| | SAFE AND POPULAR: Cancun remains a popular tourism destination and is not on official U.S. travel warnings, the Latin Business Chronicle points out. (Mexican Tourism Board) | |
Bill O'Reilly's urging of a travel boycott of all Mexican destinations is irresponsible and will wrongly hurt our southern neighbor.
It is quite irresponsible for Bill O'Reilly to urge Americans to completely stay away from Mexico, as he did on yesterday's O'Reilly Factor on Fox News. "I would not allow my children to go to Mexico on spring break, particularly when you have Florida and the Caribbean and other alternatives," O'Reilly said.
This after his guest, travel expert Pauline Frommer rightly pointed out that Mexico was a diverse country, with some parts being more dangerous than others. "You have to realize that Mexico is a very big country and 50 percent of the violence is in the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico," she said. "Cancun is very different from Juarez or Tijuana or the places where the murders have been."
DETROIT AND NEW YORK
As Frommer pointed out, warning against travel to any destination in Mexico because of the danger in certain areas, would be like warning against travel to New York because of danger in Detroit.
O'Reilly went even further than U.S. officials. The U.S. Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recently warned spring breakers from visiting specific areas like Tijuana and Rosarito Beach, according to this report from Associated Press. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has also singled out the border area as the most violent and dangerous. "While millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year (including thousands who cross the land border every day for study, tourism or business), violence in the country has increased recently," it says in its latest travel warning. "The greatest increase in violence has occurred near the U.S. border." In other words, neither the ATF nor the State Department warned against popular tourist destinations like Acapulco, Cancun and Puerto Vallarta.
Mexico remains a safe tourist destination," the Mexican Tourism Board said in a recent statement. "Tourists who suffered any incidents were minimal....Mexico is the tenth most visited tourist destination in the world and is a very large country with many safe destinations to visit and enjoy. The violence associated with drug trafficking is isolated in cities that are far away from tourism destinations. We suggest using common precautions as when traveling to any foreign country.
TOURISM GROWING
Despite the drug war last year, Mexico hosted 22.6 million tourists, a 5.9 percent increase from 2007, while revenues grew 3.4 percent to $13.3 billion, Bloomberg reported a few weeks ago. Americans contnue to dominate those arrivals, accounting for 18 million last year, according to Mexico's Tourism Board. The numbers confirm Mexico as the top tourism destination in Latin America, while tourism revenues remain the country's third-largest after oil exports and remittances.
O'Reilly did praise Mexican President Felipe Calderon for his efforts at fighting the country's violent drug mafia. However, urging U.S. tourists from visiting Mexico won't exactly make Calderon's life any easier. His war against the drug mafia has received praise from local and foreign investors fed up with years of neglect from Mexican leaders. And as Colombia has shown under President Alvaro Uribe, Mexico does have a chance of succeeding even if the war is tough and painful.
Mexico is currently suffering from a unique combination of problems ranging from the drug war to reduced exports to the United States and declining remittances from workers here. The last thing the country needs is a boycott of popular tourist destinations.
In this time of crisis, we need to help our southern neighbor, not make things worse. |
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