Violence threatens tourism in Mexico
Some resort cities now on U.S. State Department’s “do not travel” list
PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – Tourists taking the ferry from this town to the island of Cozumel now walk down a wharf lined with police, heavily armed soldiers and bomb-sniffing dogs.
Those safeguards came after a Feb. 21 explosion ripped through a ferry, injuring 24 people, including five Americans. Explosives were later found on another ferry owned by the same company.
“It’s something that makes you feel safer,” Roberto Cintrón, president of the Cancún hotel owners’ association, said about the soldiers and security after a recent ferry ride to Cozumel. “It’s the complete opposite situation of the insecurity many people think of.”
Reports about crime and tourist tragedies have made recent headlines as the violence plaguing this country erupts in cities popular with foreign visitors.
Incidents causing concern in Cancún and outlying Quintana Roo state include bars allegedly serving adulterated liquor to tourists and police targeting visitors in rental cars for bribes.
A vacationing Iowa family of four was found dead March 23 in a condo in Tulum on the Caribbean coast. Authorities suspect the cause was a gas leak from a faulty water heater.
Violence is not uncommon in Mexico, but incidents in resort cities such as Cancún, Playa del Carmen (in Quintana Roo state) and Los Cabos threaten its lucrative tourism industry.
“The common thread in Los Cabos and Quintana Roo is the public security system had been totally dismantled,” said Francisco Rivas, director of the National Citizen Observatory, which monitors security issues in Mexico. “There were prosecutor’s offices that didn’t investigate and police that couldn’t prevent or react to crime.”
Mexico had a record number of murders in 2017, with 29,158, and the rate was up 21% in the first two months of 2018 over the same period last year.
The U.S. State Department in January issued a strict travel advisory for five Mexican states. The “do not travel to” advisory put the states of Sinaloa, Colima, Michoacán, Guerrero and Tamaulipas (on the Texas border) on the same level as countries like Syria.
Mexico’s Tourism Secretariat said the advisory was based on crime statistics and atrocities “not related to incidents that directly affected foreign visitors.” The secretariat noted the list did not include Mexico’s five biggest tourist destinations: Cancún, the Mayan Riviera, Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta-Riviera Nayarit and Mexico City.