Mexico City - Investors and the government plan to spend more than one billion U.S. dollars over the next few years in the hopes of returning crime-ridden Acapulco to its former glory as an "international jet-set" resort that once attracted the likes of John F. Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor.

Today, Acapulco's reputation and quality of life are drowning beneath a wave of crime tied to narcotics and drug trafficking.

The resort, located some 234 miles south of Mexico City on the country's Pacific coast, is part of the State of Guerrero which suffers the highest homicide and kidnapping rates in the country, according to the Mexican watchdog group National Citizens' Observatory.

The State Department already prohibits U.S. government personnel from traveling to Acapulco and Guerrero, and rampant crime, including illegal roadblocks by criminal gangs, prompted the Canadian government to warn its citizens against all non-essential travel to Guerrero this year.

If Mexican authorities can't control the crime in Acapulco, efforts to revitalize the resort will "fall short," said Mexican tourism expert Gerardo Herrera, a professor and investigator at the Iberoamericana University in Mexico City.

The hotel occupancy rate in Acapulco is between 75-80 percent during the high season, down from 90-95 percent in past years, he said.

The price of resuscitating the once-iconic glittering resort on Acapulco Bay is expected to reach $1 billion in private investment alone, and includes plans for new hotels, a medical center for foreigners looking for lower-cost care, a new airport terminal and a two-mile long tunnel from the international airport to the beaches on the bay.

"Our goal is to return Acapulco to be the international jet set's preferred destination," national tourism secretary Enrique de la Madrid said in a press conference last month describing the government's ambitious plans.