Tourism

Ariz. losing ritzy tourists from Mexico

Chris Hawley
Republic Mexico City Bureau
Oct. 25, 2006 12:00 AM

MEXICO CITY – The Ciclope Travel Agency sits in the middle of Polanco, one of Mexico City’s toniest neighborhoods. There’s a Prada clothing store two blocks down the street, and a Rolls Royce dealership just beyond that.

People who live here would be perfectly at home golfing in Scottsdale or unwinding at a spa in Sedona. But few ever do.

"Nobody wants to go to Arizona, except to change planes on their way to Las Vegas," said Adina Gutiérrez, a travel agent at Ciclope.

The number of Mexican tourists flying in to Arizona, the highly desirable "traditional" tourists as opposed to shoppers from Sonora, has dropped from 82,000 in 2002 to 42,000 in 2005. The number of tour operators offering Arizona packages has plummeted from 37 to 18 in the same period, according to the Office of Tourism.

Even the number of day-trippers, Mexicans who cross the
Arizona border to shop or dine, has dropped 19 percent since 2002. The 2005 figure of 20.8 million crossings was the lowest in at least a decade, and 2006 is looking even worse, said Alberta Charney, an economist at the University of Arizona.

It’s still unclear if the decline has hurt Arizona businesses, since the amount of money spent by each traveler may have increased, Charney said. In 2001, she conducted a survey that showed cross-border visitors spent $962.9 million in the state.

But the drop in fly-in tourists is a setback because each one spends 14 times more money in Arizona than the day-trippers, and because the Arizona Office of Tourism spends $412,000 a year trying to attract them. The money goes toward advertising, seminars for Mexican travel agents, junkets for Mexican journalists, and running a small office in Polanco.

Sky Harbor Airport spends another $150,000 trying to encourage airlines and travelers to fly into Phoenix.

The decline in tourists has come
has come even as Arizona’s immigrant population is booming.

Tourism officials blame the decline on a lack of direct flights, along with media coverage of the efforts to fortify the Arizona border. Many Mexicans now equate Arizona with border deaths, fences, National Guard deployments and groups like the Minutemen, who are known in the Mexico press as "migrant hunters."

"Arizona has had its fair share of unfavorable press because of some of the things that are happening along our border," said Margie Zimmerman, director of the Office of Tourism.

Another problem is a lack of air service. US Airways has only one direct flight between its Phoenix hub and Mexico City, the wealthiest part of the country. It has no flights connecting the affluent northern city of Monterrey.

Tourism officials are hoping interest in Arizona will rise now that Aeromexico is offering Mexico City-Phoenix flights. They began on Oct. 6.

But travel agents are doubtful. Most Mexicans use travel
packages, and the wholesalers who assemble those deals concentrate on places like Chicago, New York, Florida and Las Vegas.

In a recent copy of Expo-Mayoristas, a biweekly catalog of packages consulted by Mexican travel agents, not a single wholesaler was offering an Arizona package.

"Arizona has these breakfasts where they invite travel agents to learn about their state, but it’s an absurd waste of money because if you don’t have packages at a good price, people won’t buy them," said Eugenia Vadillo, an agent at El Corte Inglés Travel in Polanco.

The guy who says you’re in the Canada section needs new glasses. I’m reading this in the Mexico section.

I suppose it is not farfetched to think that Mexicans who vacation or shop in the US feel that in the border states they are likely to encounter anti-Mexican feeling and so avoid it. If those businesses are hurting, who do they have to blame but themselves?

Everybody up here says they don’t want the Mexicans around, but they are very unhappy when the lack of Mexicans hits them in the wallet. That includes increased prices for meat and produce because of the huge number of Latin Americans (not just Mexicans) who work at slaughter houses and pick crops.