Travelling to Mexico in the wake of one of the worst tourism declines in recent memory, has been an eery experience: the occasional masked traveller, the non-existent line ups to check-in and a 319 with perhaps 20 passengers. But it isn’t the feeling of crossing some imaginary boundary to a forbidden land or the fear of catching some untamed virus awaiting at the arrival lounge. What makes this trip so uneasy is the realization that the millions of people that are not flying today may not be coming back to Mexico for a really long time.
Whether failures in policy-making, mass-hysteria, international press or just some random genetic mutation are to blame for the stampede the fact is that loosing its tourism edge, Mexico is posed for very dark times ahead. Suffice to know that its tourism industry is second only to oil.
In the midst of such a downturn the entire sector will have to rethink how it positions itself to re-engage with travellers. Yes, Mexico has a privileged geography and has exploited it through the continuous development of its traditional hubs, usually beach destinations flocked by charters full of travellers that prepaid the entire experience [...]
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