Mexico Today: The Facts from the Fiction

As the saying often goes “facts are stranger than fiction.” Here in beautiful Playa Del Carmen Mexico, we have a few facts worth repeating. And even the main stream press sources of yahoo news and el Universal news reported on President Calderon’s interview in Las Vegas yesterday, emphasizing these same facts.

South Mexico is so safe and non-violent; the only shots getting taken are tequila. According to the article on yahoo news: “Calderon said the vacationers encountered no problems. ‘Let me tell you, I saw thousands, thousands of spring breakers in Mexico having fun,’ Calderon said. ‘And from my understanding, the only shots they received were tequila shots — a lot of them.’"

There are two bottom line facts to get clear.

1) There is no drug related violence on tourism.

2) Fear of insecurity, not insecurity itself is the Fiction.

As the tourism industry represents such a significant driver and percent of Mexico’s GDP, it is not in any good business interest to engage any activities that stand to remove a market segment of such nature. And the other issue, that doesn’t need danced around is the Fear of insecurity vs. insecurity itself. "The crime itself, serious crimes are not affecting tourists, the worst word that begins with" F "(from fear) is fear, people are afraid, yes, but we got millions of people as tourists in Mexico and you can count on one hand the incidents with international tourists, I think it is 0.01%, " Calderon said. The President reiterated that there are problems in places like Ciudad Juarez, exemplified, but the rest of the country "is a peaceful place."Felipe Calderon assumed infrastructure and health and said that if Americans want addressed in Mexico, could do even reported that there are a million of them receive medical care in Mexico.