Killings, tourists keep coming in Mexico

Beach visitors are rarely targets

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico — To understand why violence in Mexico isn’t scaring tourists away from beaches, consider the cheeseburger. And then shark attacks.

“Shark attacks are very rare, but they’re spectacularly big and scary; scares the living wits out of you,” said David Shirk, director of the Justice in Mexico Project at the University of San Diego. “But very few people are afraid of cheeseburgers even though coronary disease is among the top causes of deaths worldwide.”

As summer vacation formally gets underway with Memorial Day weekend, Shirk’s analogy helps explain the state of Mexico’s tourism industry. Despite bloody headlines from some of the favorite tourist destinations for Americans — from Cancún to Los Cabos — the industry continues to grow, in part, because tourists are almost never the targets.

And the most shocking forms of killings — severed heads, bodies dangling from overpasses — for now appear to be a thing of the past.

“The kind of violence makes a big difference,” Shirk said. “People aren’t so scared, and the lure of the beach remains too tempting.”

It also helps, tourism officials point out, that the industry has responded with urgency to quell fears.

“We’ve learned from other examples that time is of the essence,” said Rodrigo Esponda, managing director of the Los Cabos Tourism Board. “Security is a round-the-clock job. We keep working together — the public and private sector — updating ideas, projects and working nonstop to get it right.”

In 2017, Los Cabos had a homicide rate of 110 murders per 100,000 people. Since then, the region has implemented a five-point, $50 million emergency plan to overhaul its security. New surveillance cameras were installed, there’s increased communication with businesses that cater to tourism and many standard U.S. safety protocols, such as rapid response security teams, have been adopted.

So far, the results have been dramatic, Esponda said. Crime this year is down 90 percent. The number of tourists is up

8.6 percent, compared with the same period last year.

Similarly, in the southern state of Quintana Roo, tourism authorities have strengthened security in the Cancún and Isla Mujeres areas after a February explosion on a ferry that left several dozen injured. Metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs have been added.

Last year was the deadliest in Mexico’s modern history, with almost 30,000 murders. This year things are even worse, with homicides increasing 20 percent in the first three months. And on Saturday, the Associated Press reported that officials in the central state of Guanajuato said seven bodies were found in Salamanca and that they appear to be members of a criminal organization.

Alfredo Corchado / Dallas Morning News Even with gang violence, tourists continue to flock to Mexico’s beaches and other popular sites.