But his optimism isn’t felt in the heartland of Mexico, where many businesses are struggling against what owners say are unfair odds.
The combination of swine flu, bad publicity from the drugs war and the depressed U.S. economy pummelled Mexican tourism in 2009.
Foreign tourists brought 11.6 billion dollars into Mexico in the first ten months of 2008, a figure which slipped to 9.2 billion dollars for the same period this year, according to the National Tourism Department.
Around 400,000 less foreigners visited the state of Jalisco – a 15.9 percent drop compared with the previous year.
Jalisco Tourism Minister Aurelio Lopez Rocha said this state was not responsible for the decline, which he said was caused by the “international situation and the perception of insecurity in the country.”
But for the success of the “Viva Mexico” campaign to get Mexicans vacationing by providing cut-price deals, the year could have been a lot worse, Elizondo said.
Next year, a “Welcome Back” campaign hopes to kick-start a recovery in the tourism sector.
But Michael Eager, the owner of La Nueva Posada hotel in Ajijic, doesn’t share any of the government’s optimism and insists that any kind of recovery will have to wait until 2011 at the earliest.
“It’s been a terrible year for us, the worst in history, everything is down. For the first time in 37 years we might have to downsize the staff,” Eager said.
Swine flu, insecurity around Lake Chapala and the financial crisis have all harmed business, Eager said, but he added that other factors could prevent a recovery next year.
“The new fiscal package means the same people will carry more of the tax burden,” said Eager. “The biggest problem is that there are two sets of rules: businesses that totally disobey the rules and ones like ours that for so many years have tried to do everything how the law was set out.”
With the IVA set to rise to 16 percent, in addition to other taxes for businesses like the Nueva Posada (beer, spirits, etcetera), enterprises that try to work under the radar clearly irk Eager.
“What’s killing the hospitality industry is people running businesses without licenses. They don’t have a tax burden, don’t give their staff benefits and the government does nothing to enforce it.”
Another problem is the lack of government coordination in promoting tourism. Eager believes things won’t get better until the 2011 presidential election, after which, he hopes, the next government will “want to make themselves look good.”
Eager is also less than impressed with federal efforts to boost tourism.
“The Viva Mexico campaign had zip success. We offered a third night for free and occupation didn’t increase at all,” said Eager. “I’ve always watched what turismo federal do outside of the country and the promotion is very poor to non-existent. You go to Canadian provinces and you get all the information you want.”
Finalized Eager: “I feel bad for local workers. I don’t think they understand the extent of what’s going on.”
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