Spirit and Volaris

Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara has just returned from Miami, where, she announced, she met with Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit. She reports that low-fare Sprit is interested in flying to Toluca, Campeche, Leon and Guadalajara and possibly other points in Mexico. Spirit now flies to Cancun.

Not mentioned in the announcement was the fact that Bill Franke, the major investor in Spirit, also controls Indigo Parners, which recently bought much of the Volaris Airlines stock sold by Carlos Slim and Emilio Azcárraga, two of the richest men in Mexico. What all this means is, for the moment, open to much speculation.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Mexicana hits turbulence

Gaston Azcárraga has summoned Mexicana Airlines stockholders to a special meeting a week from today to review the finances of the company. Mexicana is about to celebrate its 90th anniversary, but speculators are betting that it may not make it. The airline needs money and the government has declined to guarantee its bid for a $250 million loan. Firms that lease aircraft to Mexicana are said to be on edge. Proposed solutions are many, ranging from a merger with Aeroméxico to bankruptcy.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Barceló eyes cities

Spanish hotel group Barceló, known now in Mexico primarily for its all-inclusive resorts at seaside destinations, has announced plans to open hotels in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. The new properties should be in operation sometime in 2012, according to Miguel Angel Guajardo, general director of the group in Mexico. At the moment the only Barceló in Mexico not on the beach is in Cuernavaca, a favorite weekend playground for Mexico City.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Riviera Nayarit

Only 1 percent of all hotels classified by the American Automobile Association rate five diamonds. But 10 percent are located in Mexico, three in the Riviera Nayarit. This Riviera is Mexico’s newest, extending north from Puerto Vallarta for 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) along the shores of the state of Nayarit. The name dates back only to 2007, and promoters want it to be better known. What sets the area apart is its variety, for along with five diamond resorts can be found cozy inns, boutique hotels, surfer hideaways, five golf courses, treks on the backs on mules, whale-watching and more. With something like a dozen very different places to vacation, challenge is to decide on which one. Help now is available with a new Web site, www.rivieranayaritvip.com.mx . Source for more information is Richard Zarkin, rzarkin@rivieranayarit.com.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Goals announced

Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara expects Mexico to be the fifth most visited country in the world within six or seven years. It ranks 10th and is number 20 in earnings. Needed to reach this goal is more business from additional markets. For the moment, eight out of 10 international tourists come from the United States and Canada. Guevara hopes to change this, with 40 percent of all travelers arriving from other countries. She sees China as especially promising. Promotion is the responsibility of the Mexico Tourism Board (National Tourism Promotion Council), where Stephen Austin, the marketing director, announced that the new slogan will be “Mexico, a place you want to get to know” (or something like that, depending on how the phrase is translated).

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Changes at Volaris

Two of Mexico’s richest men, Emilio Azcárraga (Televisa) and Carlos Slim (everything else) have sold their stock in Volaris, one of the new, low-fare airlines. Each held a 25 percent interest in the company. Reportedly, each had invested $90 million but sold their shares for 80 million. This has not been confirmed.

Low-fare has become a misnomer, since tickets on these airlines (including Interjet and others), are not significantly cheaper than those sold by competitors, with almost no secondary airports available, fuel available only from the government petroleum company Pemex, along with other fixed costs. These new companies find it difficult to cut their own costs.

Volaris, however, does have a monopoly on several routes, including flights to different points in California from different points in Mexico. Top executive at Volaris is Pedro Aspe, a former finance minister. He bought additional shares when they became available. He and Roberto Kriete, director of Taca-Avianca, now virtually share ownership in the airline. Slim and Azcárraga are business rivals, which is said to explain their ending their Volaris partnership. Slim would like to get into cable television, which Azcárraga would like to use his television cables to form a phone company that would compete with Slim’s Telmex.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Is anybody happy?

Growing discontent in the hospitality industry is being reported by various financial columnists. The unhappiness relates to inaction by the public sector. While a promotion budget has been announced, actual promotion thuis far this year is said to be minimal. Pablo Azcárraga, director of the Posadas hotel group (Fiesta Americana, etc.) and president of the Tourism Industry Council, this week declared that tourists are afraid to come to Mexico. He said that a campaign is needed to counteract the country’s negative image.

Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara has appointed herself general director of the National Tourism Promotion Council (Mexico Tourism Board), which originally was formed to be an autonomous organization to promote travel to Mexico. Having bragged the Tourism is performing better than last year, Ms Guevara agreed that things were better in 2008 and that those levels are unlikely to be met in 2010.

No replacement has been named for the general director of Fonatur, the National Tourism Development Fund. The former boss was fired for brawling during a World Cup soccer match. His brother this week was replaced at the Home Ministry (Gobernación), but that had been expected for some time.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Shop ‘n’ tell

Being scrutinized by their superiors at the National Tourism Promotion Council (Mexico Tourism Board) is the behavior of two recently promoted officers, Wendy Zurita, Commercial Development Coordinator, and Yadira López, public relations coordinator. They accompanied Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara on her promotional swing through the United States and Canada. The two apparently spent an inordinate amount of time shopping. Nobody would have known, but on Facebook they bragged about the fun they were having. “On your mark…get ready…shopping!” “Come fly with me on Broadway!” and “Let’s see how they celebrate the Fourth up here!” Pictures were included.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Timeshares

According to a recent article in the newspaper Excelsior, there are 409 timeshare properties in Mexico, 107 of them in Cancun and the neighboring Maya Riviera, followed by Puerto Vallarta and its neighboring Nayarit Riviera, followed by Mazatlan, Los Cabos and Acapulco. Although contracts vary from property to property, generally speaking, customers buy the right to occupy a unit for a specified period of time every year. For destinations, one big advantage is that these units will be occupied even during times of economic slowdown when other vacationers tend to stay at home. Over the years, Mexico has enacted laws defending purchasers, including the right to opt out of a contract after signing it. Usually opters-out have only three days to change their minds. Being examined now are unexpected increases in maintenance fees. While contracts fix the basic purchase price, cost of maintenance can vary and be raised at any time. Developers reportedly are opposed to any change in the rules.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Trying to catch up

Although dollar earnings from tourism during the first five months of this year are better than they were in 2009, Mexico has yet to catch up to 2008. The Tourism Ministry is making much of figures showing that 2010 is shaping up to be much better than 2009, but 2009 was the worst year in history. A flu scare left many resort hotels almost empty and some actually closed, although temporarily. This year, international arrivals are 17 percent less than in 2008. The good news is that tourism brought 7 percent more money into the country than it did in 2008.

Statistics, based on a World Tourism Organization formula, fail to reflect reality, or so say some in the industry. Totals include border crossers and cruise ship passengers. Border crossings have fallen sharply, the result of violence associated with drug smuggling and organized crime. Making things worse has been the recent flooding in areas south of eastern Texas. The rampaging Rio Grande has threatened the existence of many border bridges.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Promotion budget announced

Mexico will invest 1.6 billion pesos (about $1.23 million) in its upcoming tourism promotion campaigns, Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara told El Financiero, a Mexico City daily, during a visit to Toronto. Emphasis will be on promoting the 10 “tourist routes” the minister has been touting, the idea being to show that Mexico has more to offer than beaches. While tour operators agree, several have pointed out that beaches are what travelers to Mexico want.

While in Canada, the minister also stopped off in Montreal on a swing that also took her to Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. The Canadian market is increasingly important to Mexico. Conversely, since Canada imposed stringent visa restrictions, the number of Mexican pleasure travelers to Canada has declined dramatically.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Mexico City lures tourists

Mexico City is looking forward to 2.4 million visitors this summer, according to Alejandro Rojas, head of the city tourist office. Rojas, who hopes to become mayor in 2012, noted that the capital has 50,000 hotel rooms, 2,000 restaurants, 240 nightclubs and discos, 145 churches (not counting smaller chapels and shrines), 140 museums, 75 shopping centers, 33 zoos and 31 parks, which should be enough to keep any visitor busy.

Early figures show that tourism in the capital has grown between 7 and 8 percent this year and is a major source of employment. Mexico City receives more foreign travelers than any other such facility in the country. Airport traffic is up 45.7 percent, according to official figures. Many passengers, however, simply arrive to make connections. Of those who stay, most are in town on business.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Investment down

Investment in tourism-related projects was 65 percent less than during the first quarter of 2010 than the amount registered last year. Total was $397 million. Biggest decline was in the amount provided by domestic investors. Hardest hit was Southern Baja California (Los Cabos), which saw no new investment early this year as compared to $115 million that went in during 2009.

Economic conditions get the blame for the decline, but many in the industry also blame environmental restrictions and a general slowness on the part of local authorities to authorize new development.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers

Promotion Campaign Launched

Tourism Minister Gloria Guevara traveled to Los Angeles this week to speak to some 200 tour operators, airline executives, travel trade journalists and others about the next campaign to promote travel to Mexico. Big goal is to develop more travel to less visited areas.

“Mexico is more than a beach,” the minister said, according to reports in the Mexico City press. The country has 29 World Heritage sites, 30,000 archaeological zones – most of them inaccessible, a detail the minister neglected to mention – and expects tourism to increase 6 percent over 2009, its worst year ever.

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Jimm Budd

Reporting from Mexico City

Member of the Society of American Travel Writers