San Diego, California - On August 5, a senior official with the Mexican Tourism Board said a handful of major cruise lines, which had dropped stops at ports in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta for the rest of 2011 because of safety and security concerns, may be rethinking their business decisions.

Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, chief operating officer of the Mexican Tourism Board, said that tourism visits to destination spots in Mexico are up 2.1 percent through the end of June compared with the same year-earlier period, and some cruise lines may have canceled their visits to major port cities along the Pacific coastline as an "overreaction to negative press."

"Literally, every single market is up, and some of those markets are seeing double-digit growth," Lopez-Negrete said. However, he said, Mexico has seen "a minor reduction," year-to-date, of visitors from the U.S. He attributed this drop-off to the economic downturn in the U.S., and emerging concerns that the nation could be headed back into a recession, thus cutting consumer spending.

The tourism board was created in 1999, and functions as an executive agency of Mexico's Tourism Secretariat, with autonomous management and participation from the private sector.

Lopez-Negrete said that his tourism board has engaged in conversations with cruise line officials, and "some admit a little bit of overreaction" to negative press regarding a spate of violence tied to the escalating drug war in pockets of the country.

"Their business models need to be revamped. We have to work with the cruise ships so that it's attractive, and profitable for them," said Lopez-Negrete in a telephone interview earlier this month. "We believe they will come back to Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. Major Mexican destinations are safe."

In recent months, Carnival Cruise Lines, Disney Cruise Line, Holland America, and most recently, Princess Cruises, have canceled visits to the ports. Princess Cruises had indicated that it would hold off on making a decision to return until next year.

"We recently changed the itineraries, and at this point, there are no plans to change them back," said Julie Benson, a spokeswoman with Santa Clarita-based Princess Cruises. "But we are always looking at all of the variables that go into that kind of decision."

"The safety of our guests and crew is our number one priority. We will continue to work with the Mexican government and local officials to review their security plans for Mazatlan," according to a prepared statement provided by Vance Gulliksen, a spokesman with Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines. "Carnival ships had previously called in Mazatlan for a number of years and we are hopeful that we will be able to return there in the future."

Lopez-Negrete said he was heartened to see U.S. officials change their approach to the issuance of travel warnings to Mexico. The officials previously had broadly painted travel advisories to Mexico without specifics on where possible violence might crop up.

He pointed to a July 4 holiday weekend advisory issued by the U.S. State Department in which the agency urged tourists to avoid the border town of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. The advisory warned that the Zetas drug cartel planned to target Americans who visit Nuevo Laredo and its surrounding Mexican suburbs. Lopez-Negrete said he believed this type of advisory was the first of its kind.

He estimates that roughly 80 municipalities in the sprawling country have experienced "episodes of violence." The violence, he said, "is very well centered, in very defined pockets, and a majority of them are along parts of the border with the U.S., and are by no means affecting the safety of the ports."

He also noted that international hospitality businesses have recently invested about $1.5 billion in hotel development in Mexico.

He cited Dallas-based Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, which opened a hotel in San Miguel de Allende in February. Others investing heavily in Mexico include Intercontinental Hotels Group, Starwood Hotels & Resorts and its swanky W Hotels brand, and Marriott International, he said. "There has been an unprecedented level of investment."