| | |  Travel & Outdoors 
Mexico Promotes Some Routes Best Avoided
 Tim Johnson - Postmedia News
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September 13, 2010
| | The Ruta de Independencia links the cities of San Miguel de Allende, Dolores Hidalgo, and Guanajuato. (Ann Summa/New York Times) | |
White beaches, colonial cities, Mayan pyramids, world-class cuisine - these are some of the obvious draws that bring 22 million to Mexico each year.
Now, Mexican tourism authorities are also highlighting some off-the-beaten-path destinations, promoting 10 "Routes of Mexico" in an advertising campaign in the United States and Canada.
The beautifully crafted ads on cable TV and in magazines show no images of another facet of the nation: the bloody war between drug cartels that's made parts of northern Mexico more akin to Afghanistan than a tranquil holiday destination.
Would-be tourists are left asking: Where is it safe to go in Mexico?
It's a question that the Mexico Tourism Board doesn't answer. Its officials say foreigners can go just about anywhere. Itineraries suggested on the visitmexico.com website include violence-ravaged states such as Michoacan, Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango, where the U.S. State Department urges citizens to exercise "extreme caution."
a href="../1008/to-mexseekstourists.htm">McClatchy Newspapers analysed the routes using U.S. State Department travel advisories as a guide. The upshot: Four of the 10 routes should be avoided and another one is questionable. The other five appear safe.
One tourism official said it's not the board's duty to advise tourists on safety.
"Our job isn't to talk about security. Our job is to talk about the assets we have as a country," said Rodolfo Lopez Negrete, the tourism board's operating chief. "The positives vastly outweigh these kinds of very isolated situations we have in the country."
Stephen E. Austin, the executive director of market research for the board, said that "if the route is set up, it's OK to be there."
He said he'd been in one of the Mexican states that the U.S. State Department considers dangerous, Michoacan, a few weeks earlier and that the warning is overblown.
"Michoacan has a very high-end tourism product, by the way, very high end."
For those considering a trip to Mexico, it's advisable to read government travel advisories. It's also a good idea to do an Internet news search about violence in and around a specific destination.
The U.S. State Department notes that about a million Americans live in Mexico and that resort and tourist destinations don't see the violence of border areas or drug trafficking corridors. But it adds that more than 22,700 people have been killed in drug-related violence since late 2006 and that gunfights are common in a number of cities.
Drug traffickers have "kidnapped guests out of reputable hotels" in the bustling city of Monterrey, it adds, and drug-related murders climbed tenfold in Durango in recent years.
Mexico has reason to safeguard its tourism industry and downplay violence. Tourism is its third-largest source of revenue and generates one out of every 7.7 jobs.
• • •
See travel.state.gov/travel for American government travel advisories
See www.voyage.gc.ca for Canadian government travel advisories
See visitmexico.com for the suggested itineraries. |
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