MEXICO CITY -- Several of the leading U.S. tour operators to Mexico
expressed their frustration with the country's lack of a unified
tourism marketing campaign at the Travel Weekly Mexico Leadership
Forum here.
"The marketing effort has been left up to the hotels and tour
operators," complained Ed Jackson, president of Runaway Tours,
during a panel discussion. "It's important that Mexican tourism
officials immediately implement a marketing plan. Otherwise, we're
leaving money on the table."
Carolyn Weathers, senior product manager, Mexico, for American
Airlines Vacations, agreed, saying, "All of our hotel partners do a
great job of coming together with dollars to support us, but it's
the combination of the destination and the partners working
together and coming up with a program that stimulates demand that's
important.
"We need to get back to basics and create that demand now. We
obviously need marketing dollars to do that, but what we really
need is unity within the destination."
Mexican tourism officials did their best to deflect the
criticism. Rene Rivera, a spokesman for the ministry of tourism,
said tourism revenue through July was up 7% compared with the same
period last year. Rivera attributed the spending increase to the
approximately 4 million cruise ship passengers who arrived through
July, a 49% jump.
International arrivals, however, were down 8%, mainly due to a
decrease in U.S. visitors, according to Rivera.
Guillermo Ohem, director of Mexico's foreign tourist offices,
told the Leadership Forum audience that officials were "working to
rectify the problem." He said the tourism board has "worked in a
coordinated effort with its partners in the past and intends to do
so in the future."
Still, the Leadership Forum panelists, who included
representatives from tour operators, airlines and online retailers,
said the absence of a tourism promotion campaign was hurting
business.
"The key element is to have continuity in the marketing of
tourism to Mexico, and that's missing right now," said Elizabeth
Moriarty, vice president of product development for MLT Vacations.
"The U.S. market represents about 80% of tourist arrivals to
Mexico, and tour operators account for anywhere from 70% to 80% of
that volume, so we need support from the government."
A case in point is the Mexico Tourism Board's "Closer Than Ever"
promotion, which has been conspicuously absent from the U.S market
since March, when the board's contract with its advertising agency,
McCann Erickson, expired.
According to Mexican law, contracts between the tourism board
and its advertising agency can be approved for only one year.
Compounding the problem, the bidding process for the new
advertising agency was delayed because Mexican law also mandates
that the tourism board's advertising agency have offices in
Mexico.
But after a six-month delay, the tourism board announced earlier
this month that it had named Young & Rubicam as its new
advertising agency for North America.
The ministry received a special authorization from Congress to
sign a three-year contract, which is scheduled to run through
December 2005.
In a statement, Rodolfo Elizondo, Mexico's tourism minister,
said, "A priority for the country is to avoid a delay in tourism
promotion for the winter because this would harm the Mexican
economy."
To contact reporter Jorge Sidron, send e-mail to [email protected].