Tourism surges in San Luis R.C.
SAN LUIS R.C., Son. — At a time when travel warnings may give would-be travelers second thoughts about visiting other places in Mexico, San Luis Rio Colorado has seen a jump in tourism in the last two years.
Since 2015, the border city across from Yuma County has received more than 100,000 visitors, who pumped more than 43 million pesos — more than 2.4 million U.S. dollars — into the local economy, according to Marissa Esquer, the city’s tourism director.
She said many of those visitors came from the United States, although she did not cite a specific number.
One of the main factors for the surge in tourism, she said, are the special events the city has staged in the last two years, including an inaugural balloon festival in 2016 that brought more than 200 pilots to San Luis Rio Colorado and attracted nearly 10,000 people.
Mayor Enrique Reina’s administration also has added to the city’s calendar of events taco, date and beer festivals, all of which brought out large numbers of people.
Other popular draws include the Tierra Sonora festival, started by a prior administration to pay tribute to the city’s and the state’s cultural traditions, and the annual fall pheasant hunting season, which last year brought nearly 600 hunters to the area.
Esquer and other tourism officials expressed relief last month when San Luis Rio Colorado was left off the list of Mexican cities cited by the U.S. State Department in a travel alert as places Americans should avoid or visit with caution. Among the cities that made the list were all of the Baja California border area cities that are frequent destinates for U.S. travelers — Mexicali, Tecate, Tijuana, Rosarito and Ensenada.
San Luis Rio Colorado also did not appear in a prior travel warning issued in December.
Nonetheless, the city recently contracted the Baja California consulting firm Mayaquing to providing training for members of city police force to better serve the needs of visitors.
The purpose is “for the visitor to have the assurance that (the police) will be there to help them, guide them and orient them, besides providing security through crime prevention,” Esquer said.