| | |  Travel & Outdoors | May 2009 
Deals Don't Entice Canadian Travellers to Mexico - Yet
 PVNN
 |  | I haven't booked [or] looked into any Mexico [vacations] since the swine flu was announced.
- Travel agent Natash Hubich |  | | |
Despite deals at empty resorts and Canada lifting its travel advisory, travellers don't seem to be buying tickets to Mexico.
George Romberg at Calgary's Magic Tours and Travel has been booking Mexican vacations for more than 25 years and said he has never seen flights as cheap as they are now.
"All kinds of special deals. They don't know what else to do to attract people back," he said.
Air Canada Vacations was offering a Cancun package from Calgary in early June for as low at $583 plus taxes per person at a 4½ star hotel. Managers at some Mexican hotels are offering what's called a flu-free guarantee, promising free holidays to travellers who have a blood test confirming swine flu eight days after returning home.
On Monday Canada's public health agency lifted its travel advisory for Mexico — the epicentre of the swine flu — saying the H1N1 virus was starting to wane.
Travel agent Natash Hubich said people aren't booking.
"I haven't booked [or] looked into any Mexico [vacations] since the swine flu was announced," she said.
Charter companies waiting it out, says agent
Last month Richard Girvitz and his wife Jenny were forced to cancel their wedding in Mexico. They had a small, last-minute wedding in Calgary instead and honeymooned in Cuba.
Girvitz said they might go back to Mexico next year and renew their vows.
"We were emailed by the wedding co-ordinator and she offered us to come back in late July and if we were to go back we'd be upgrade to the … honeymoon suite that we had planned, which is a nice offer, but it is in the midst of hurricane season," he said.
Michael Broadhurst, who is the head of Visions 2000 and has been in the travel business for 25 years, said the swine flu scare has been tragic for Mexico's tourism industry and hotels won't recover their business this summer.
"It's illogical for the charter companies to put flights on in the summer, which is always their weaker time when they are starting from a weaker base. So I think they are just going to sit it out and wait until the summer is over and people start thinking about getting out of here and getting down south into the warmth," he said.
"I think you'll see the tourism department coming out with some novel incentives to get people to fly there." |
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