Author Archive

I really do think that this could mean the death knell for travel guidebooks as we currently know them!

TripAdvisor Inside™ is a travel wiki. We can all now read, write and edit online travel guides on thousands of destinations around the world. There are no doubt other examples, but TripAdvisor are the big players.

Travellers – and residents – can now collaborate to write travel guides together. One person starts a topic, like “Cancún: Travelling during Hurricane Season” Another person adds to it. Another fixes a couple of typos. Another adds more to it. And shortly you have a travel topic written from the collective wisdom of dozens of people.

Better than an outdated guidebook.

Kitty Bean Yancey writing in USA TODAY says that tourism officials are throwing what’s billed as "world’s largest beach party" from August 11th -13th, including sand-sculpture and surfing contests, food, music and booze.

The article also includes some hotel updates…

the 515-room Westin Resort & Spa reopened July 7th, but still has rooms being worked on
the 365-room Ritz-Carlton Cancun is due to reopen in mid-September
the 450-room J.W. Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa has 235 rooms open. All are due back by the end of August
the 450-room Marriott Casa Magna Cancun Resort has 200 rooms open; all are due back by the end of August
the 300-room Hyatt Regency Cancun is due back in November

In a recent survey of more than 3,000 people conducted by TripAdvisor, 89 percent of respondents said their vacation plans have not been affected by the early predictions of another active hurricane season. Fifty-eight percent said they plan to visit a hurricane-susceptible destination such as Cancún.

Still, last year’s rash of storms did make an impression: sixty-three percent said they would purchase travel insurance.

So as we look ahead to the really big tropical months coming up – August and September – let’s hope that the Atlantic remains as quiet as it has during June and July. But something tells me it won’t.

I’ve previously posted some thoughts on the subject of ‘hurricane preparedness’. Then, earlier this week, I got a call from USA TODAY reporter Laura Bly. We talked at some length about the post-Wilma recovery in Cancún: the positive, the less positive, and some areas still to see some action.

Laura quotes me in her article published today, although my opinions are rather more rounded than they might appear from the morsel in Laura’s piece.

This recent photo clearly shows Punta Cancún (foreground) and the restored beach heading south. View a (dazzling) larger version.

Photo courtesy of Cancún Visitors Bureau (Oficina de Visitantes y Convenciones de Cancún), with additional thanks to Manuel Cuevas and Sandra Ibarra of William H. Coleman Inc.

After walking the beach and getting well crisped by the sun, Mel Zelniker took this photo of the beach in front of the Cancún Palace on June 4th.

While the hotel is being re-developed, an "Ecological Restoration Area" has been planted at the back of the beach. A ‘beautification’ project really.

View a larger version of  Mel’s photo of the beach.

Mel adds that it appears the beach cleaning is restricted to hotels that are open; the area in front of Le Meridien (the green-roofed building in the background) is pristine, while the area next door in front of the Ritz Carlton is laden with seaweed and junk.

Another photo of the ecological restoration area, and another.

Today is a good day. The sun is out. That’s three days in a row.

It just got even better. As part of the global celebration of World Environment Day, Planeta.com has named me as the recipient of the annual Colibri Ecotourism Achievement Award, largely for my work on this blog.

Colibri means "Hummingbird" in Spanish and this year the Award celebrates its sixth anniversary, making this one of the longest-running ecotourism awards. Needless to say, I’m chuffed to bits.

You can read what some very nice people have to say about me on the award…

After five solid months of trabajando hasta las horas de la noche, burning the midnight oil, scouring the wires, trying to write coherently and accurately about the post-Wilma recovery, I needed to take a break; re-charge the batteries. That’s all it is tough, a time out.

Again, a big thank you to all those who have helped make this blog what it is. You may notice that there is no one on this long list from the Mexico Tourism Board. Despite frequent emails to over thirty individuals in Mexico City and Quintana Roo, not one of them felt the need to acknowledge this work.

As always, email me with your thoughts on how to improve this website…

Two weeks ahead of schedule, and a just a few days short of six months after Hurricane Wilma left her ugly footprint on Cancún, the resort now boasts miles of golden sand.

"Jan de Nul is getting ready to pack its bags" Gabriela Rodríguez Gálvez, Secretary of Tourism for Quintana Roo state (pictured) declared yesterday.

She added that the last recycled sand was being flushed onto a 70m stretch of beach in front of the hotel El Pueblito, the only section of the 11.7km (7-mile) strip which did not get its promised measure of 25m first time round.

While the two dredgers disappear over the horizon, Belgian maritime engineering company Jan de Nul may yet win…

Just as some of us anticipated, it seems that Jan de Nul has returned to the spot where they began the beach recovery project on February 1st. Probably to sort out the issue of the sand "wall".

Many thanks to Steve Wright of CancunCare.com who took this image of the outfall pipe in position on Playa Delfines, ready (presumably) to start pumping sand today.

Here’s another photo… taken just north of El Pueblito and looking south towards the Westin and Punta Nizuc.

Much ducking and weaving, much passing of the buck in evidence today as most of the local newspapers on sale in Cancún carried a story on the post-Wilma squabbling between hotel reps and insurers. I covered some of the background in January.

Insurance salesmen would probably squeeze their way into the top five in most polls of the least respected, least trusted professions – certainly where I come from. They are the perennial bad guys.

Now, I am not about to leap to their defence, but, all the same, while hoteliers may baulk as premiums skyrocket and insurers drag their feet to settle their dues, I believe they should share the blame as the cycle of build and…

Now is the time of year weeny stinging organisms begin to bloom in these waters, resulting in what locals call "aguas malas"; literally, ‘bad waters’.

The larval form of the thimble jellyfish, or "dedalillo", is the culprit. Direct contact with skin – particularly in the friction areas of a swimsuit or bathing cap, or in body creases – can trigger the discharge of nematocysts, or ‘arrow cells’. The releasing toxins may cause skin affections, a little local pain and itching.

Around the Caribbean, the common wisdom specifically warns against ocean swimming between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day yearly, but the problem ‘window’ is often longer.

Lifeguards will usually know when the little buggers are most prevalent.…