Baja businesses, tourism officials to U.S. customers: 'Come Back!

By Greg Gross
UNION-TRIBUNE BREAKING NEWS TEAM

5:38 p.m. January 23, 2008

TIJUANA – With cross-border visits showing marked declines, business and Baja California tourism officials are going into full-scale damage control in hopes of regaining ground lost over the past year.

“The image of the security problem has hit the state very badly,” said Baja California's tourism secretary, Oscar Escobedo Carignan.


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At a news conference Wednesday at state government offices in Tijuana, Escobedo described a new program aimed at luring visitors back to the region's tourist spots.

The program, called “Get Your Passport,” offers discounts at hotels, restaurants bars and shops to those holding a U.S. passport.

On the promotional posters and other materials being printed for the campaign are the words, “Come Back!”

Escobedo also told reporters that the state was contracting with a public relations firm to help Baja California deal with what he termed “crisis management.”

The problem lies in a major falloff of visitors driving to the Baja California region from the United States. Escobedo said there were 1.5 million fewer visitors in 2007 than in 2006.

“We have over 80,000 people who are U.S. citizens who live in Baja California. They are aware of what the situation is and we don't have any problem with those people,” Escobedo said. “The problem is with people who do not understand the border.

“It's a challenge and we're working on it.”

Escobedo said the region has suffered a significant blow to its image with reports of organized crime and violence in Baja California, as well as of robberies and assaults on foreign tourists in the last year.

That image wasn't helped by news videos broadcast around the world showing a fierce 3½-hour gunbattle last week between Mexican police and soldiers and gunmen believed loyal to the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Six bodies of presumed kidnap victims were found in the house after the shooting ended.

Escobedo insisted, however, that stepped up patrols along what he termed “secure routes” between Tijuana and Ensenada had taken hold, and that no additional highway banditry had been reported since Nov. 17.

“This is something that will be permanent by the state and federal government and we feel confident that this will not be an issue anymore,” Escobedo said.

Those who view Baja California as a dangerous, crime-ridden region, Escobedo said, do so because of what he described as heavily repeated news accounts of robberies and assaults. He said that gives the impression that the incidents are more frequent and recent than they actually are.

“If my children go to school in the United States,” he said. “I'm not going to pull them out just because of Columbine.”

In his view, the long waits at the ports of entry to return to U.S. territory present more of an impediment to travel, he said. But he also insisted that with the Mexican federal government beginning to take a hard line against organized crime in that country, the region's image would improve.

“We are going through a maturing process, and we're not going to put up with this anymore,” he said.

The “Get Your Passport” program begins as the region braces for U.S. border crossing rules that go into effect Jan. 31. The rules require U.S. citizens to show proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport, to re-enter the United States through any land crossing. Some businesses fear the rules will further hurt tourism.