Tourism Dips Slightly, City and Merchants Launching New Promotional Efforts

By Hector Aldrete GermanIssue #453

It is used to say in the stock market that "what goes up must come down." Well, Puerto Peñasco's tourism business 'went up' starting in 2007 and then went down by the end of the year. Compared with 2006, there was an increase of 15% to 20%, for an overall total room occupation around 65 to 68%, with the vacation period and the long weekends registering up to 90% occupation of hotels. This gave a positive boost to the our economy, says Conventions and Visitors Office (OCV) Director Rafael Gonzales Valenzuela. He calls these 'respectful' numbers compared with previous years - especially considering the problems affecting the USA economy, since it its that country which generates most of the tourism traffic to the harbor.

Because of the economic situation in our neighboring country- the economy recession, the mortgage issue, bank credits, and also because it is an elections year - US citizens are more conservative when planning their vacations, so tourism began to decrease at the end of 2007. Now 2008 has started bad compared with the previous year, but for the same reason, Gonzales Valenzuela assured that there is no reason to fear, because Puerto Peñasco has had 8 consecutive years of larger than normal economic growth with tourism always increasing. This season could be called a "stand by", so now during the out-of-season period there are several strategies developed with the hotel operators to counteract this situation which has generated some fear among the visitors which cancelled some prior reservations, commented some hotel operators.

Moreover, we have the new USA legislation demanding that all U.S. citizens must use their passports, something that is being informed to the potential tourist - although it is necessary to point that the legislation is not still yet mandatory on this specific region so the USA tourist has no impediment to return to his country.

On the other side, the tourism committee has decided to promote Peñasco as a family destination, aiming at a better quality of tourism instead of quantity, and trying to extend the average tourist stay 4 nights instead of the current average 3. Although that's no reason to forget the so called "youth tourism", because in Spring Break alone this tourism reaches an overall occupation level up to 95% each year.

Another point mentioned by Gonzales Valenzuela is the importance of national tourism, which also generates a large income. For instance the Holy Week (Semana santa), generated an occupation of 30,000 visitors last year - up to 100% complete and total occupation - so that's why there is more interest and emphasis in promoting Peñasco to Mexican tourists. For this year, Spring Break and the Holy Week will be very close, with Spring Break from March 10 to 20, and the Holy Week on March 20 to 23, a situation that is not really very convenient commercially speaking, because there would be only one period with a large number of visitors instead of the usual two.

But nevertheless Gonzales Valenzuela said that there would be some economic improvement during the middle of the year, months in which the economy will recover with the help from merchants, hotel operators and the city council, who are working together for the benefit of Puerto Peñasco, bringing back the high level of tourist visitors to our city.