Is Mexico safer than New Orleans?

Posted by Jason Clampet at 3/26/2009

I've been a big fan of Baja California ever since I lived in Los Angeles and began taking frequent trips to the peninsula. I'm not sure, though, how accurate my impressions of the place are now, considering that I spent all of my time there before the uptick in violence that began in 2008. From the recent press reports and the warnings coming from the State Department as well as TV talk-show hosts, you'd think all of Mexico was a death trap waiting to snap shut on you as soon as you cleared customs in Tijuana, Mexico City, Cancun, or Cabo San Lucas.

I got sick of sifting through all the "don't go to Mexico" stories out there, so I emailed Hugo Torres, the mayor of Rosarito, for some perspective. Rosarito, a 20-minute drive from downtown Tijuana, became a hot spot in the early 2000s for southern Californians seeking affordable second homes. It's also a popular weekend spot for college kids and soldiers from the San Diego area.

Torres has a few biases, to say the least: in addition to being mayor, his family has long owned Rosarito's most notable hotel (Sinatra, Orson Welles, and Rita Hayworth were a few of its guests from Hollywood's Golden Age). But he's not an idiot, which is why he's not going to say "come on down, it's safe" if he thinks that'll lead to San Diego surfer getting kidnapped



"The best way [to know what's going on] is to talk to our frequent visitors or some of the 14,000 expatriates who live here," Mayor Torres emailed me. "They know from first-hand experience that Rosarito is safe and welcoming, perhaps more so than ever."


"The inaccurate perception of insecurity here has greatly reduced tourism. That perception, along with the U.S. economic slump, also has deeply impacted residential building. Together, it has been a tough economic hit. About 5 restaurants closed in this period, so far, one hotel closed for previous problem aggravated by the current crisis. Approximately 1,500 jobs have been lost."

A number of residential developments have been suspended or shut down completely, including a Trump condo tower that would have likely been a debacle with or without the violence and economic slump. Yesterday, Rosarito delayed until August a pro surfing contest that was to be held in April, citing a lack of sponsors and the need to wait until the media frenzy died down.

Torres trusts that will happen soon enough. "In general, the media that know us best and cover us most closely have presented the most accurate portrait. This includes, foremost, the San Diego Union-Triubune and also the Los Angeles Times. Pete Thomas, who writes the "Outposts" blog for the Times, has been excellent. Many of the sensationalized stories are done by reporters who seldom --- and sometimes never --- visit the area."

Like other Mexico boosters, Torres pushes the cartel-on-cartel violence story line. "The violence we have had has been primarily between rival factions of a drug cartels as more pressure is brought upon them; our visitors are not targeted nor is the typical resident affected. However, the inaccurate perception of insecurity here has greatly reduced tourism."

A vast majority -- over 90% by just about any count -- of those that have been killed in Tijuana and other cities are related to the drug trade in one way or another. It's also true that the violence is so concentrated in certain cities that there is rarely spillover into nearby towns, let alone other states. Baja California Sur, which takes up the southern half of the peninsula and includes La Paz and the Los Cabos area, had one drug-related murder this year, making the area safer than just about any city in the United States. Torres and others have pointed out that New Orleans, which almost everyone in the travel industry encourages people to visit, ranked third in 2008 for the most murders per capita in the world -- just between Cape Town, South Africa and Moscow, Russia.

That doesn't mean people shouldn't be careful when traveleing there. "We'd give pretty much the same advice that works for travelers anywhere," Torres says. "Stay in the popular tourist and business areas and avoid ones where things like drug dealing and prostitution occur. That won't be hard to do."

Photo credit:
Guadalupe Valley vineyards
Photo by jasoncedit

Gustavo Torres
www.bajainvestment.com

WAR ON THE DRUG CARTELS

As we've seen in the many many new US news reports on the drugs and violence, there is a war going on. We've seen too that, like Mrs. Clinton mentioned repeatedly, as long as the US continues the drug demand, all countries in the world will keep supplying it.
The difference here is that Mexico declared a WAR ON THE DRUG CARTELS…
I wish I could say the same for the US and other countries. I have never seen where the US police forces capture a drug boss in US soil.
WHY are we leaving the war only to Mexico? And yes, we have a drug war going on in Mexico, trying to stop narcotics from crossing the border.
Drugs mostly come from Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and other places, stop in Mexico, and then find their way into the US market. And the news people love to exaggerate the situation and show Mexico and places like Baja, very unstable, and like some even say in these blogs…”on the brink of civil war”.
This is amazingly ridiculous. Mexico is a stable country, and in most Mexican cities, you wont event know there is a drug war going on. In Baja, for example, we have over 20 million American tourists visiting every year, and no big incident involving an American has occurred in the last 18 months.
Out of 20 million VISITORS! How many incidents involving Americans have occurred in cities in the US in the same period?
Please be real! I ask US media: please be fair, and show the other side of Mexico! In some Baja cities, like Rosarito Beach for example, over 10% of the population is American, living happily, and now upset at US media, as they are scaring their friends and family from visiting them! They mostly believe that there is an agenda to attack and discredit Mexico. In another example, an agent for the US State Departement in California, saw some news reports, and based on that, he issued the travel alert for spring breakers NOT to travel to Baja or other parts of Mexico.
Yes, out of exagerated news reports… no facts, no knowledge!
Millions of spring breakers had been coming to Baja for over many years, and NO incident what so ever has happend to any of these visitors… Now with these media reports, the Tourisim sector in Baja is in crisis. I know bad and scary news sells more, but look at the damage to our country when newspeople don’t cover the true facts.
Mexico’s number one export is oil, but our number two income source is tourism.


Gustavo from Baja
www.bajainvestment.com

Ron Raposa

College Project Focuses On Media Accuracy in The Coverage of Rosarito Beach, Mexico
ROSARITO BEACH, BAJA CALIFORNIA, MEXICO ---A public affairs class from Boston’s prestigious Emerson College for the second year will focus on conveying an accurate picture of this tourist city and dispelling misleading U.S. media reports.

The RediscoveRosarito project is that of a graduate class in public affairs led by Emerson College professor Gregory Payne, whose family also has a home in the tourist and vacation city 30 miles south of San Diego.

Payne originated the idea for the project in international public affairs after seeing some U.S. media reports that presented a picture of Rosarito far removed from the city that he had known for years and to which he is a frequent visitor.
“One of our major objectives it to ensure that the stories and narratives are backed with facts and not sensationalized solely to get the attention of the public,” Payne said.

“Last year and this year, we see the mediated reality at odds with the facts. Rosarito is a safe and secure city for tourists to visit and expatriates to move to and enjoy the Baja Mexican lifestyle.”
He cited a recent segment on ABC World News Tonight as an example of misleading coverage.

“Mexico under the leadership of President Felipe Calderon is conducting a serious battle against drug cartels. But despite what some media reports have indicated, regular residents and visitors to Baja California are not the targets.”
Rosarito Mayor Hugo Torres said he was very appreciative of the work of Payne and his class, 10 of whose members visited Rosarito when the project was launched. He said that inaccurate perceptions had badly damaged the city’s tourism-based economy.

“It’s gratifying to have such a prestigious U.S. college as Emerson advocating for us and helping our story be told in a fair and balanced way,” Torres said. “With our new tourist police force and other steps, Rosarito with its population of 14,000 expatiates is safer and more welcoming than ever.”

Emerson students this year will continue the bi-lingual RediscoveRosarito website, the second Rosarito Student Film Festival, and a media ethics project - rosaritofactcheck - dedicated to making sure the media’s message is fair and accurate.
The results of this media audit will be presented at the National Communication Association`s Annual Convention in Chicago this November and at the International Academy of Business Disciplines Annual Convention in Los Angeles, Spring, 2010.

Results of the audit will also be submitted to Media Ethics, a scholarly publication on the role of ethics and the media, as well as to local news affiliates in California and Mexico, Payne said.
Emerson students also are working on a collaborative project with students from Southern California colleges dedicated to promoting Rosarito as a great place for spring break and weekend trips.
A public relations campaign will be developed to promote this effort by the class at Emerson, founded in 1880 as the only school devoted exclusively to communication,

RE/MAX Baja Realty
www.remax-baja.com