Travel News You Can Use
By Judy Newell

Mexico Travel News An Englishman in the Yucatán Here’s a tip for a fascinating day trip west of Cancún: head out to Mérida and pay a visit to the nineteenth-century mansion of renowned English explorer Frederick Catherwood. In 1839, he and John Lloyd Stephens, an American, became the first Westerners to discover the magnificent temples, palaces and terraces mysteriously abandoned by the Mayan civilization centuries earlier.

Catherwood’s home has been beautifully restored and features a collection of 25 of his meticulously detailed lithographs from his 1844 book, Views of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán. If you can’t make it to Mérida, but find yourself in Chichén Itzá, visit the lower floor of the Mayaland Hotel to see stained-glass windows based on original Catherwood lithographs. 

Nichupté gets its mangrove back

Nature lovers will be pleased to hear that the Mexican government has pledged to restore and protect the incredible wetlands that separate Cancun’s Hotel Zone from the mainland. They suffered from major hurricane damage in recent years. The Nichupté Mangrove Swamps, a major tourist attraction, cover more than 10,000 acres and are home to some of the world’s most diverse wildlife, including more than 200 species of birds.

Go figure

In January 1970, Isla Cancún had just three residents—all caretakers of a coconut plantation. Now, 39 years later, Cancún is a world-class resort, as the following figures prove: 146 hotels; 28,000 rooms; 75 percent of rooms ranked 5-star, the highest percentage in Latin America; 453 restaurants; 12 shopping centers; 13 golf courses; 3 million tourists each year; US$3.073 billion brought into Mexico in 2007, thanks to Cancún. 


Diamonds are a hotel’s best friends

Ten hotels in Mexico received the prestigious honor of AAA Five-Diamond Award status for 2009. The hotels are Las Ventanas al Paraiso, Los Cabos; the Four Seasons Mexico City; Grand Velas All Suites & Spa Resort, Nuevo Vallarta; Four Seasons Punta Mita; Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach; JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa and Ritz-Carlton Cancún in Cancún; Fairmont Mayakoba and Occidental Royal Hideaway Resort & Spa, in Playa Del Carmen; and Paraiso de la Bonita Resort and Thalasso, in Puerto Morelos. 


Only the top 0.28 percent of lodgings in the world earned the award, according to AAA. For 2009, 103 hotels and resorts in North America received the top designation out of 58,000 lodgings and restaurants reviewed. 

Relaunching Los Cabos 

A five-million-dollar promotion campaign is planned to lure vacationers back to Los Cabos. Once the first choice for the wealthy traveling to Mexico, the twin towns at the tip of the Baja California saw occupancy levels drop 24 percent in recent months in the wake of a conflict between taxi drivers and tour bus operators. As a result, many tour operators either cautioned clients about visiting Los Cabos or simply terminated service there. 

Last month, federal, state and municipal authorities signed an agreement designed to end the conflict. Let’s see if it works; neither representatives of the bus companies nor the taxi drivers attended the meetings. 



International News

Time to visit Thailand?

From empty sun loungers at luxury hotels to vacant bar stools in dingy saloons, tourism in Thailand is going through its worst slump in decades, a result of the global economic slowdown and its own political turmoil.

The head of the Tourism Authority of Thailand estimates the eight-day closure of Bangkok’s US$4 billion Suvarnabhumi airport by antigovernment protesters a month ago will have caused one million foreign visitors to cancel trips or go elsewhere. It’s the hardest hit ever encountered in the 48 years that Thailand’s been promoting tourism. And that’s after the country suffered through the December 2004 tsunami, bird flu and SARS.

The only people still smiling are the foreign visitors who decided not to be put off by the likelihood of more political unrest—all the sights are pretty much empty and you can get a guide all to yourself. 

Epic film fails to halt Australia’s falling tourist numbers 

Australia had high hopes for the epic film Australia, which opened in November and stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. A new marketing campaign based around the film was described as the highest profile and most sophisticated campaign ever undertaken by Tourism Australia. Unfortunately the film under-performed at the box office and the critical reception has been mixed at best. 

Reuters reported that foreign visitor numbers to Australia hit their lowest point for two decades and to date the marketing effort based on the film has failed to deflect global recession fallout. Tourism Australia said the biggest decline would be in visitors from Japan, expected to plummet almost 30 percent, and from China, as Beijing’s breakneck GDP growth slowed. Fewer Australians will head overseas as the falling local dollar makes outbound travel more expensive.

Sources: Mexico Tourism News, Interval World, Travel Age West, NY Times, Travel Agent Central, Budget Travel 

Judy Newell heads the travel company Perfect Journeys, which specializes in discounted rates for airfare, hotels, tours and cruises worldwide, as well as luxury and adventure travel. Contact her with comments or suggestions at JudyNewell_03@msn.com  or go to her website www.PerfectJourneys.net.