Thread: Mexico Worried About Future of Tourism

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wir ... id=1245797

Mexico Worried About Future of Tourism
With Looting Abating in Cancun, Mexican Officials Worry About Future of Tourism
By WILL WEISSERT
The Associated Press
CANCUN, Mexico - Mexico's economy took a big blow from Hurricane Wilma, with the palatial hotels at the heart of its tourism industry left in ruins and shopping centers emptied by looters.

Soldiers and federal police took to Cancun's streets Monday to prevent further theft, and President Vicente Fox announced plans to start evacuating 30,000 frazzled tourists as he worked to restore the image of a carefree Caribbean beach paradise.

Fox told AP Television News while touring Cancun that officials hoped to start busing some tourists 170 miles across the Yucatan Peninsula to the airport in Merida later Monday. He said he hoped Cancun's airport could resume operations Tuesday so evacuations could move quicker.

There was no estimate on damage, but Fox told the Televisa network there should be $27.6 billion in aid from various levels of government, insurers and loans to help reconstruction. Many of Cancun's 500,000 residents lost nearly everything in flooded or destroyed homes.

Electricity was reported out in much of the city, and the president estimated it would take a week to restore power. He said officials were trying to bring in more portable generators.

Fox expressed concern that one of Mexico's biggest moneymakers the Caribbean coastal resorts would not fully recover for at least two months. The booming string of hotels anchored by Cancun produce almost half of the country's $11 billion in yearly foreign tourism revenue.

"We're approaching the full tourist season. So speed is fundamental," Fox said.

Ana Patricia Morales, vice president of the Cancun Hotels Association, said full recovery could take until Easter week. She told The Associated Press that all the group's 110 hotels had sustained damage, ranging from broken windows to structural problems.

Fox said only six people were known dead, adding to 13 who died last week when Wilma hit Jamaica and Haiti. In Belize, south of Yucatan, police said they were searching for a dive boat that disappeared over the weekend with several people aboard.

Lingering over the region for two days, the hurricane battered Cancun's line of luxury hotels into an expensive breakwater. Lobbies were heaped with twisted metal, broken marble and shattered glass. The beachfront was gone from some hotels, leaving their foundations exposed.

As the rains stopped Sunday, stunned Mexicans watched television images of looters rushing through stores like swarms of ants, carrying out everything from TV sets, clothes and beer, to trucks, cars and even pizza delivery motorcycles.

Whole blocks of stores were looted, and many stores were bare by Monday. Police said about 200 people had been arrested.

Most tourists were still sheltering in cockroach-infested classrooms reeking of sweat and mildew. While a generator growled at an elementary school housing more than 1,000 evacuees, no lights were working. Hand-scrawled paper signs urged civility: "Respect each other."

Shouting erupted when soldiers demanded tourists stop trying to recharge cellular phones with the generator. Outside, people lined up 15 deep at any pay phone found to be working.

Some tourists said they had been promised a flight out Tuesday. But Jeremy Dean of Chattanooga, Tenn., expressed skepticism.

"Everybody keeps saying tomorrow, tomorrow. After about Friday, we stopped listening to that," he said.

Some expressed irritation the U.S. government had not done more.

"I feel the Mexican government is helping here to an extent, doing the best they can," said KeVen Riley, town finance administrator for Paw Paw, Mich. "But the U.S. has done nothing. Where is our government? They are only preparing for Florida; they forgot about us."

A few people burst into tears when U.S. consular officer Lisa Vickers arrived later and said evacuation is largely up to tour operators. She urged people to stay with their tour groups.

Fox warned businesses Monday against price gouging or firing workers.

"Nobody will be unemployed. Everybody is going to work for the region to get ahead. The government and hotels are going to respect that commitment," he told rescue workers.

http://today.reuters.com


UPDATE 2-Stranded tourists' nerves fray in storm-hit Cancun
Monday 24 October 2005, 6:35pm EST


(Adds death toll, signs of recovery)

By Noel Randewich

CANCUN, Mexico, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Dazed foreign tourists stranded in stinking shelters in this hurricane-hit Mexican beach resort demanded to be rescued on Monday, and President Vicente Fox lost his temper at slow aid efforts.

Toilets overflowed and food was scarce at refuges in Cancun, where some 20,000 vacationers spent their fifth day sleeping on floors or in stuffy rooms without electricity or running water.

Hurricane Wilma, one of the strongest Atlantic storms recorded, wrecked Cancun over the weekend, gutting huge hotels before pounding Cuba and Florida.

Cancun is Mexico's main resort, a major source of jobs in the region and the jewel of a tourism industry that is the country's third-biggest earner of foreign currency.

Wilma killed at least seven people in Cancun, the nearby resort of Playa del Carmen and on the island of Cozumel. Some reports spoke of 12 dead.

Heavily armed federal police stood guard at supermarkets to prevent looting, but a convenience store was raided of food and soft drinks. Authorities declared a night-time curfew.

A Mexican newspaper said two people were shot dead in looting on Saturday night but state officials could not confirm that.

A fist fight broke out overnight at the El Forito theater, which was holding some 300 mostly American and British package tourists evacuated from their lodgings, witnesses said.

"If some changes aren't made, it's going to get real nasty, because people's tempers are starting to get frazzled. You are living on rice and noodles and fruit," said Jim Pelinka, 54, a school administrator from Minnesota.

Tourists slept in two-hour shifts on the theater's wooden stage because there was not enough room in the building, which stank from overflowed toilets.

One American tourist shouted for aid from the U.S. government. "We need help in here and they're not helping us," she screamed. "They should be flying in planes or helicopters or something. Give us water! Give us food!"


FOX ANGRY

A visibly angry President Fox, touring the area, demanded that the army and police set up a joint command center in Cancun to stop looting and help tourists fly out.

"I want that command center operating 100 percent right now," he shouted at local officials.

Fox complained that Cancun residents were going hungry, and he interrupted the federal civic protection chief Carmen Segura who told him supplies were on the way.

"Leave it out, Carmen. I don't know if the supplies are finished or not or if they are in people's stomachs, but I don't see them here," he snapped.

Another 18,000 tourists were stuck in Playa del Carmen and the Tourism Ministry said Wilma would cost Mexico's tourism industry $800 million. A hotel owners' association priced the damage at nearly twice that amount.

In better times, millions of foreigners visit Cancun every year for its pristine beaches and turquoise seas. It was built out of almost nothing by government planners in the 1970s on a spit of mosquito-infested sand.

Wilma's fierce winds left debris lying on Cancun's streets and tore shop fronts off expensive shopping malls.

In all the chaos, there were signs of recovery. Flood waters receded from the streets and cars ferried building materials to repair broken homes and businesses.

Tourists and locals mobbed a hot dog vendor who set up his stall at Cancun's bus station. Buses began to take tourists out to the city of Merida, from where they sought flights home.

"We don't leave by plane for another two days, so we'll have to sit in a hotel but at least we'll be able to buy clean clothes and food," said Jean Denovellis from Connecticut as she sat in the crowded bus station bound for Merida.

Cancun and Cozumel airports were to open on Tuesday after remaining shut since Thursday, the transport ministry said.

Some tourists said the elderly with heart troubles were running out of medicine and arguments about the use of water or sleeping space broke out at the shelters.

"We just want to go home. We're tired, hungry, we're not clean. Everything here is unsanitary, no running water," said Gloria Davis, a children's hospital worker from Philadelphia who was on her honeymoon.

The timing on this is excellent the US government has announced that the 45 free pass is up.

A huge need for workers to rebuild now exists in Mexico. Instead of allowing an extension for the undocumented workers here Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco should demand use of DHS Basic Pilot.

President Fox should provide for any Mexican workers wanting to return south to work in their own efforts at reconstruction. I feel that many in the U.S. would be happy to accomodate him.