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Mexico Travel & Tourism: Can Travel Deals Get Crowds to Return?

Beach Vacations, Mexico & Central America, Student Travel — on March 2, 2010 2:06 pm

Beach view - Mexico travelThe swine flu epidemic, drug-related violence and a global recession all proved to be major buzz-kills last year for Mexico, driving away millions of visitors in 2009.

With colleges and universities gearing up for spring break, will Mexico be able to bounce back in 2010?

Keep reading to find out what Mexico is doing to entice travelers to venture south of the border.

At this time last year, Mexico was a hard sell for a spring break escape. Sure, there were beaches and sunshine. But there were also fears of a catching a rampant and deadly virus or getting caught in the crossfire of a drug lord shoot out.

No Swine FluSome universities even sent out letters to students warning them to take caution if they dared travel to Mexico.

On top of that, more travelers were opting to stay close to home because of a worldwide economic crisis.

All these factors combined to create the perfect storm, keeping tourists at bay and causing Mexico’s foreign tourism revenue to tumble by $2 billion. In 2008, Mexico raked in $13.3 billion from foreign tourism, while in 2009, that number fell by about 20% to just $11.3 billion.

But things are turning around in 2010. Swine flu is no longer dominating the headlines as the virus has proven to be treatable.

View our complete Mexico & Central America travel section.

Soldiers - artThe Mexican government is working to educate people about where drug violence is most prevalent. They insist that it is mostly concentrated in states along the Mexico-U.S. border, far from the country’s popular beach destinations.

MTV will even host its annual spring break party at Acapulco in the state of Guerrero, which is no stranger to drug killings and gun battles. Acapulco is paying the network $200,000 to bring in its cameras and spotlights. The party is expected to lure 7,000 to 10,000 spring breakers to the resort town.

The down year in 2009 also forced Mexico to lower its prices across the board. Now thanks to lower airfares and all-inclusive package deals, Mexico is getting noticed for something positive in 2010: its great value.

By Dan Bence for PeterGreenberg.com.

Related links: Yahoo! News, The New York Times

PeterGreenberg.com Links:

  • http://www.lastminutetravel.tv/ Last Minute Hotels

    I can say that travel deals can really comeback customers because we know that when it comes to deals that is related to travel there are discounts and usually they come up with a good price. The only factor I think why customers don’t come back is that the country they visited is being affected by some critical issues, just like what happen in Mexico wherein swine flu is active. If that is the case, mostly people who wants to go there, can’t really go back because they are afraid of the the swine flu virus.

  • http://www.virtualsocialmedia.com/social-media-marketing-optimization-services/social-media-pricing/ Social Media Pricing

    Flu scare last year was a big block for the industries growth last year.

  • http://www.rsanow.com.au RSA Online

    In such a country which is being affected by an epidemic virus I think people will not visit this kind of country even if travel deals such as discounts are available because people knew that their health is more important than their want to go in a place which is affected by a deadly virus.