Wednesday, March 21, 2012

U.S. expats want tourists to return to Baja California


ENSENADA In their campaign to bring back U.S. visitors, Baja California authorities are increasingly looking to a new source of support: testimonials from members of the state’s U.S. expatriate community.

Tillie Foster, 79, is a U.S. expatriate who lives in Ensenada and is queen of her local Red Hat chapter. In the background are dancers from a local high school who served as entertainment for the first Baja International Community Mega Mixer. / Photo by Sandra Dibble * U-T

Through family connections, business contacts, social media, radio programs, promotional videos — any means that are at hand — residents such as Tillie Foster have been gladly stepping up to support their adopted home.

“Baja’s been good to me. I’ve made so many friends here,” said Foster, 79, a member of the Baja Image Committee who moved to Ensenada from Orange County 36 years ago. “I hate to see what’s been happening over the past five or six years.”

Foster was one of the promoters of the first Baja International Community Mega Mixer, held last Thursday at the historic Hotel Riviera del PacĂ­fico, a civic and cultural center in downtown Ensenada. The gathering drew an estimated 300 expats from different parts of Baja California, many of them eager to share their viewpoint about life south of the border.

“It’s more relaxed. We’re done with snow, we’re done with cold,” said Gary Pliley, a 64-year-old retiree from Utah.

“You make friends here that you could call at two in the morning if you needed help,” said Carol Main, 69, who moved to Baja California from San Diego.

Also at the Thursday event was Vivian Scott, a marketing professor from Nevada. She was instrumental in persuading Las Vegas-based radio host Les Kincaid to broadcast his one-hour program, “Wines du Jour,” from an Ensenada hotel later that day.

“We have an investment in Baja,” said Scott, who with her husband owns a condo in San Felipe. “The farther you get from Mexico, the more entrenched the negativity.”

Ensenada, like tourist destinations statewide, has been struggling to bring back U.S. tourism. Hotels, restaurants and other businesses across Baja California have been working to recover from the sharp decline of American visitors since 2006, the result of a combination of factors, including the U.S. economic downturn, clogged border crossings, a new U.S. passport requirement and fears of crime in Mexico.

“The strongest testimony, the best, is from people who live here in our state,” Ensenada Mayor Enrique Pelayo, said as he addressed the Riviera gathering.

North of Ensenada, Rosarito Beach saw roughly a 70 percent drop in U.S. visitors from 2005 to 2010, said Hugo Torres, owner of the hotel and the city’s former mayor. For the first time in years, the downward trend was reversed, he said, as his hotel registered a 17 percent increase in Americans in 2011 over 2010.

Torres, who is president of the Baja Image Committee, has joined state tourism authorities in seeking out the support of members of the expatriate community, made up of an estimated 25,000 full- and part-time residents.

Their endorsements “are one more way of projecting an image that things are right, conditions are right for people to come down,” said Juan Tintos, Baja California’s Tourism Secretary.

Last year, Tintos’ office commissioned a 10-minute promotional video titled, “What is Baja?” The video draws heavily on interviews with U.S. visitors, residents and promoters such as Gary Foster, who runs the twice-yearly Rosarito-to-Ensenada bike ride.

“Turn off the TV and talk to someone who’s been there,” said Foster, whose event has suffered from the drop in U.S. visitors. “The tourists that travel to Baja are the best ambassadors Baja has because they know the real story.”

sandra.dibble@utsandiego.com • (619) 293-1716 • Twitter @sandradibble

www.bajainvestment.com

Mexico's Booming Economy – What Investors Need to Know

By Richard Houghton & Sean O'Neal
Mexico's economy is on fire and now is the time to invest, if today's news headlines are any indication. Check out the impressive array of information below, which we have gleaned from a wide variety of stories written recently by some of the world's most respected financial institutions and reporting agencies. According to Goldman Sachs, Mexico's rapidly advancing infrastructure, increasing middle class and rapidly declining poverty rates will foster a higher GDP per capita than all but three European countries by the year 2050. This estimate might be conservative, when you consider that according to Forbes magazine Mexico's economy and GDP was already 11th in the world as of 2010, which Bloomberg, CNBC and Reuters all noted was a growth of 5.5 percent that year – the most in the last decade. Furthermore, NASDAQ has called Mexico “one of the world's largest developing economies,” pointing out that per capita the Mexican economy is already larger than those of China, India and Brazil. In addition, UK Trade & Investment has announced that it expects Mexico's economy to surpass the UK's by the year 2040, also pointing out that the UK is one of the largest investors in Mexico. A report by the Financial Times compared Mexico's current economic state to that of Spain 20 years ago, while IT exports from the country are expected to surpass $3.5 billion US in 2011 according to a report by Forbes Magazine. In addition, the European Union is working to improve its ties with Mexico by making it a “strategic partner,” while Honda has announced intentions to invest around $800 million according to a report by USA Today. Also of note, Bloomberg covered announcements from Nissan, General Motors, Mazda and Volkswagen to invest more than $400 million each in auto manufacturing facilities throughout Mexico. With all of this growth and international interest, it's no surprise that Bloomberg recently reported that Mexico has raised its forecast for foreign direct investment in 2011 to $20 billion US – a figure that is a full 11% higher than previous predictions. www.bajainvestment.com

How to Find Gas at $1.46 Less Per Gallon (Really)

By Dennis Romero Fri., Mar. 16 2012 at 7:00 AM Comments (6) Categories: Economy
Tricia Wang ​What if we told you we knew of a place where you could save about $1.46 a gallon on gas -- today? What if we told you, while you were in the neighborhood getting your cheap gas you could also dine on meals that have the foodie nation buzzing, get a huge discount on your prescription drugs, and take a picture with a zonkey (that's a zebra crossed with a donkey, but not really)? You'd say we sound like a cheesy salesman using the "what if we told you" ruse? Yes, but other than that you'd be all about this. Well, not so fast. You see, this non-mythical land of gas and gastronomy is 135 miles away, at least. So you'd have to dedicate a day to it. And the savings would do you no good unless you really wanted to go there anyway. But you do:
starlen Tijuana scenery. ​ A round trip drive to Tijuana with a car that gets 20 miles per gallon, with an average L.A. gas price of $4.35, will cost you nearly $59 in fuel. But if you fill her up in TJ (yes, despite what the New Yorker says, even locals have been calling it TJ -- for decades) you can see a savings of $20 on that 13 or so gallons it would take for your outing. The San Diego Union-Tribune says the savings between SoCal gas prices and Tijuana gas prices, given the peso exchange rate, is about $1.46 a gallon. And, yes, people in Southern California are already taking advantage of the discount. Heck, $20 dollars in Tijuana can buy you like a couple buckets of beer, a huge bag of crap weed (don't try bringing it across the border, though), or a nice dinner for two. Of course, Mexican gas is not as complicated as California's clean-burning blends (and that's part of the reason why it's cheaper), and finding Mexican gas with high enough octane for this reporter's car would be a feat. And then there's this: They kill people in Mexico. A lot of them, it seems. But mostly they're people in the business. Yeah, that business. But that's none of your business, so you're probably safe. And some locals now claim that things are much better in Tijuana -- so much so that the rich folks are starting to move back there from their second and third homes in San Diego. Given all that, it's still a little bit of a gamble -- like betting on the greyhounds at Caliente. But $20 certainly gives you a few more chips to play with. [@dennisjromero / djromero@laweekly.com / @LAWeeklyNews] www.bajainvestment.com