Off message
Last night I received an email from Mexican ecotourism pioneer Marlene Ehrenberg Enríquez, whom I count as a friend.
Marlene is exasperated having suffered from repeated tour cancellations from German tour companies, including this one.
For example, a complete ten-day tour of Mexico (arranged in June 2005) has just been cancelled in its entirety, despite only two itinerary days scheduled to be spent on the Mexican Caribbean - and in Playa del Carmen of all places, which is 99 per cent back to its pre-Wilma state.
Marlene has sent an appeal to the Mexico Tourism Board: tell ‘em the real story next week in Berlin, where the humongous International Tourism Fair begins on March 8th.
The issue is more than academic; in 2005, the Riviera Maya received 2.76m visitors, of whom 30 per cent (663,000) were Europeans - principally from Spain, Italy, the UK, France and Germany (in that order).
On average, Europeans stay in the region for eight to eleven days - and spend more of their euros and pounds than North Americans spend their dollars.
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March 2nd, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Thank you. Hopefully the ITB will promote responsible tourism
March 6th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
Thank you for an informative post.
That travelers (and travel agents) remain confused about where to go should be a thing of the past. Do you know whether ITB will feature any Mexico presentations? Also, is anyone blogging or flickerng the ITB event?
And finally … where you getting the stats of tourists stays and expenditures? I don’t dispute that Europeans stay longer, but it would be good to keep track of where the official stats are published.