The main objective of the Tourism Department of the government of the Republic is to multiply the Mexican Tourist products and to be on the International market. And this like an attractive multi-destination with a varied offer, with as a first intention to create jobs, secondly to multiply the currencies which enter in the country as a consequence of tourism and at last to seed the regional development. Knowing that the internal savings generated by our country are not still enough to finance investments, works and services that are necessarily required by Mexico. Therefore, we have to bring the savings of other countries. So, on the one hand we are working on how to bring tourists who will leave foreign currencies by their expenses. And on the other side we are working directly on the promotion of direct investment because when they bring capital recourses into our country, when they build marinas, hotels, theme parks, etc, they plant their own seed of the internal resourses. Our behavior has to achieve completely the three intentions previously quoted. The secretary is responsible for the definition of the Mexican government policy regarding the tourist sector. It is supported in two essential conditions: the first one is maintenance and the second one is competitiveness. The supporting has had its three main aspects; first, the Research of tourism has to always respect the environment. Then, the tourism has to keep the social equity, that is to say that local communities can take profit for jobs and resourses, and at last it has to be a good business with an important profitability. The competitiveness is understood as the value you add to the tourist product in order to be very attractive for the International tourists. We cannot achieve it without a good relation between attractiveness and profitability. The Department defines and works following that policy, in a long term, trying to carry out the three goals we were talking about formerly. Additionally to the policy, the Department is working on the improvement of the planning, of the tourist’s destinations in order to make them count on a territorial and ecological order. So, such as the investor, who arrives in the country as the national investor will have the judical security on legal aspects that determine the territorial and ecological orders. So, they can know where to build a hotel or a commercial center and where they can’t count on a much better and more planning. The SECTUR is involved in the important work of the investment such as the public and private. However, one can not work without the other, they are complementary. The Department for sure, does neither build the freeways, or the airports, or the treating water firms. It is the coordinator of the government of the Republic in order to make the government of the state help the public investment to run in a well balanced way, coordinated and since then according to the main necessities of the main tourists destinations. Mexico has undertaken an important promotion of that kind of investment for the building of roads, of harbors, of airports and of treating water firms among other things. So, the tourist’s destination will have the necessary infrastructure. It’s true that a destination, as attractive as it is, if it has neither an airport nor a road, it will never have a good position. Additionally to the subject of investment, the Department is a big motor of what is called the tourist product. For example, the region of the Maya’s world is a place for which we have to transform its attractiveness in tourist potential. Inside this region 5 states of the Republic are offering a variety of gorgeous tourist products. There are some unbelievable beaches, with a temperate climate and a pleasant temperature of the water during the whole year, a sun shining, corral; the second most important in the world after Australia’s, which starts in the Islands of Cozumel and carry on until Central America, as few as it is, it has everything regarding the Maya’s culture, areas and archeological ruins for miles. But, if we can assemble as a tourist product that we can sell in the International market, so it does not serve for anything. So, the Department is working on the promotion of the tourist product to put it in conditions, which can permit to sell it in the International market in order to, then, adapt with the commercialization with Council of tourist promotion. Another important subject is the one of the tourist services. We can have a brilliant planning, a very good infrastructure. We can do a big promotion to attract lots of tourists, but if we don’t have the quality in the provision of the tourist services, the tourist will never come back. The Department of tourism has undertaken the National Crusade for the quality and the excellence in the tourist services. This is basically the ability of the staff in contact with the tourist and the development of a tourist culture as well. Since then, the Department is also responsible for the system of tourist’s information of our country. We produce, seed and diffuse quantitative regarding the tourist sector; that is to say we realize the statistics of occupation, of currencies entering, of importance of the sector in the national level, etc. These are broadly the main works realized by the Department of tourism.
What are the different aspects of the tourist sector over which the Department is realizing studies and statistics because of its importance according to the investors public and private?
We have done a work that generates the information that gives to an investor or to a tourist the inclusive information on the imbalance of the tourist activity in our country. Tourism represents for Mexico 8.2 of the national gross product. If we add the row formation of capital, that is to say the investment realized plus the purchase of archives, non-financial tourism represents about 10 % of the gross domestic product. Nowadays tourism generates of the total of the remunerated employment of that country and in that proposal of employment. I don’t include non-paid employment as could be handcraft. There is about 6 millions of Mexicans who between direct and indirect employment live of the tourist activity. If today you put in value of the market the investments, that our country has in tourist matter, we will certainly reach the 30 thousand millions of dollars in tourist firms. In one side this under-secretary is monitoring and realizing analysis and investigations on the weight of the tourist activity in our country. Mexico has the seventh place in the world in the attraction of International tourists. There is only 6 countries who received in 1998 more tourists than Mexico and regarding the entrance of currencies, we are occupying the 12th worldwide place, ahead by the US, France, Spain, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Austria, Turkey, Poland and China and other two European countries. A data very important for our economy is that tourism, additionally to the fact of being a generator of currencies; last year we had 7 thousand 800 millions of dollars of entrance of currencies, the tourist balance during the 5 years of the government of Zedillo had meant a balance surplus of more than 3 thousand millions dollars every year. From the first year until now we have had a favorable balance. This is important for the economy of the country because apart from generating jobs and attracting currencies, tourism represents a favorable balance that compensates the commercial deficit in other sectors from the manufacture industry which generates a lot but which also spend a lot in imports. Tourism is one of the free generative balances superarbitrary in our balance of payments. In one side, we are doing studies of that nature; all the specific heavy part of tourism in the economy, but also SECTUR realizes market, researches of profitability, and attractiveness tourist, of the profile of the visitor. For example what kind of attractiveness are asked by the Canadian or by the Germans or what do prefer the American tourists, without leaving apart the national tourism. 80% of the expenses that are realized in the tourist activity come from the national tourist. This is a generality in a worldwide level. Therefore, we are doing investigations with the intention to adequate our strategies in the promotion in the development of the product and in the campaigns of International promotion.
Does the promotion of tourist product replace completely the individual promotion of each state?
International trends are indicating that the way through which is promoted today tourism is product more than promoting Egypt a strategy of commercialization is settled for the promotion of archeological product. Egypt is famous for its pyramids. Mexico is not stranger to that concept of promotion and that’s why the Council is going to move its strategies of promotion toward the product instead of promoting Baja California Sur as a state in general. Lots of campaigns will be published in order to promote the golf. | There is a market in the west of the United States that demands huge golf courses and Mexico is very attractive in the side of Los Cabos for that kind of tourism. So a whole strategy for golf is being taken. In the other side, more than promoting the Maya’s world show that it is known the whole world over. We would also have to promote the wonderfully archeological offer and the historic and cultural heritage or the alternative tourism on Congress and conventions. It does not substitute the promotional strategies for Cancun or for Acapulco or for Guanajuato, if it is not complementary, but they try to do it in the particular. This under-secretary works a lot in the development of the tourist product, which will permit in the market products such as the Circuit de Cortes Barranca del Corte.
What percentage of the investment comes from the private sector compared to the public Sector and what are the projects to attract more investment?
The promotion of the private investment is one of the pillars of the tourist policy in the Mexican government. For the moment we have registered that the total amount, during the period 1998-2000, will be 6 thousand million of dollars in tourists projects. A big part of this investment is concentrated in the hotel offer, but also in complementary services such as golf courses, theme parks,etc. To promote the investment we have worked in a legislative reform that gives to the investor a juridical security. The one who has an exedent of recourses and who wants to invest in any country will have this security. The macro-economic stability which offer today to the investments is one of the element which warranties the profitability of itself. To know that this country will increase of 4.5 % with a 10% inflation, that we have reservations of 30 millions of dollars, and since then that the change rate which attracts capital has been constant around 10.40 pesos during the whole year in relation to the dollar and since then which has been attracting capital. It is what it looked, a place which warranties stability. Another of our goals is to come in an easier way and to invest in the country in a skillfully and simple way. To reach that we have understood work of administrative simplification and regulation trying to reduce procedures and bureaucracy. Our country has not taken the same path as the other countries, for example Latin America for the awarding of indiscrimination subsidies. We are not good for that kind of incentives because at the end they create distortions in the market establishing special incomes for benefit groups and we do not think it is the correct way of proceeding. If there is in some states of the Republic some fiscal subsidies and incentives for the investment, for example in Acapulco. The tax for which one has to pay to acquire a place if he wants to build a hotel in a new ground has been substitute for three years. It is the same thing for the Maya’s riveriera for which we can not count on some profit. In that sense, we don’t favor the foreign investments above the national’s. All the firms and all the investors can have the same benefit. Now regarding the tourist matter Mexico is extraordinarily attractive for investment in golf courses, in shared time, regarding residential tourist development for the retiree or for the health market. The fiscal policy that we are following does not have as objective the research of big privileges or fiscal incentives, but only to be competitive at the International level. We don’t want to have a double tributation. We want to attract capitals, to have the return of taxes of the value added, etc. In such way that national fiscal conditions can be comparable not only to the one of the countries with a similar level of development but also to our direct competitor, that is the case of the United States, Canada, and European Countries. Some fiscal incentives have to see with reductions in the property taxes, in the acquirement of buildings, in the awarding of buildings license, in the transfer of the fields, if the ability of the staff is in charge of the company, they will have government grants,etc.
What happen to the states who want to participate in that development but who do not belong to the region’s elite tourists?
A; Today we have different attractive fields for the investment. Undoubtedly the region which has more recourses to receive investments is nowadays the one of the Maya’s world. It includes such as Cancun as the Maya’s river, and we are investing in the building of hotels, theme parks, supporting infrastructures for the different activities that offers the place such as diving. The region south of Quintana road where we have inaugurated two tourist’s developments have a very original concept. It is different of what is already existing in the north of the country. It is starting to be another very important zone for investment. Mexico has also in the part of the Mar de Cortes investments for more than 1000 millions of dollars in what we call Barranca which reunites the Coast of Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, and the Barranca del Cobre. We can count on important projects of investments, for sure in the regions of the beaches, but also in colonials and capitals towns. For example, in Monterrey there is a very important investment in what is the market of the conventions and in Guadalajara with offer such as beach as gastronomic. It has been invested for the eco-tourism in Michoacan and in the state of Mexico with what is represented the monarch butterfly and in the golf and in the sea of Cortes the whales. There are interesting investments in Oaxca, in the city itself and in its destinations of beach of as Hualco and Puerto Escondido. So, practically now there is not any state for which there is not a following of national or foreign investments. We are studying how to maintain the seventh and the twelfth currencies respectively in the next 20 years. We must build an offer of accommodations, at least 8 or 10 000 rooms in a tourist category. It needs an investment of 800 millions of dollars, but if we add what are the complementary services we will annually need to have for 1000 investments 200 millions of dollars. Since then for our country the American market is very important and represents the 85% of the total of our tourists. But we are looking for an important diversification focused on the European tourist, which have for obvious reasons an average of stay superior than the American’s. The profiles are also different, the European tourist are mainly interested in the cultural issues. So, a more important offer of attractiveness has to be proposed. And because the distance is more important, the expenses are more important and in that sense we would not depend on a unique market, from there the interest of diversifying the market.
What is your last message for our readers?
Mexico is one of the economies more opened of the world. Mexico has done a process of opening so important that it has reached to be the only country in the world to have commercial countries within a free trade frame with the two most important economic blocks of the world. with that North America and the European Union. Additionally of counting with treaties already signed in other countries of Sur America. Mexico is the eighth economy of the world in what is referred to exports with more commercial partner of the United States. And for effects of investments the opportunities are not limited to the Mexican market. Regarding tourist issues Mexico has a natural offer of natural recourses and historic heritage such as few countries of the world. We have more than 10 thousand km of coastlines, of beautiful beaches, of gorgeous weather water temperatures are fantastic during the whole year, forests, locks, a lot of everything. In that way we are the eighth country in tourist infrastructure, we have an important system of airports, of safe roads and of course we have the opportunity to invest in Mexico in a good business. The conditions of economic opening, of legislative opening that we have undertaken for the promotion of foreign industry of deregulation, the macroeconomic stability, the democracy opening, makes of Mexico one of the countries more attractive for the foreign investment. And of course we as a government we want to transform in the best ally for the investor in order to make him find the best place to invest.
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MEXICO
