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Interview with
Mr. Alfredo del Mazo Gonzalez ,
CEO of Fonatur
15th February 2000
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Could you give a brief historical background on Fonatur, and an insight to the development of the tourism sector in the last couple of years.
Fonatur was established 25 years ago, representing a complete turnaround, a complete change in the way that tourism was promoted and developed in Mexico. Why? Because Fonatur undertook a very professional, long-term planning process, which was to highlight and concentrate on the tourism centers. Secondly, because Fonatur was also appointed to construct the basic infrastructure for the first-class tourism destinations in Mexico. Thirdly, because through this planning and infrastructure, Fonatur was also assigned certain land reserves to develop the whole urbanization process, and in so doing, the original plan guaranteed that it was going to be respected and applied. In that master plan, actually what happened was that we perfectly specified where the different services were going to take place: We guaranteed the protection of the environment. This is also a main philosophy of Fonatur, to protect the environment so that we guarantee sustainable development in the medium and long term. That is actually what Fonatur was established for, and is why Fonatur has achieved great success in the main tourist centers of Mexico.
I strongly believe that tourism all around the world is going to continue growing at a rate higher than most other economic activities. This is also true in Mexico. And probably it’s even more true, because Mexico is in a strategic geo-political situation, geographically speaking. It’s very close to the North American market, but at the same time it’s in the middle of Europe and Asia, and also in the middle of Latin America, so it’s a strategic position and therefore tourism, one way or the other, is going to continue being a tremendous source of economic development for Mexico. That’s why we are giving such a priority to tourism, and nowadays, for instance, we also believe that the development of planned, integrated centers, such as Cancún, Los Cabos, Huatulco, Ixtapa, Loreto, Barranca del Cobre, have had, in the past, a more important role than the average tourism in the country. For instance, in the number of rooms in the integrated centers of tourism developed by Fonatur, the growth has been 8.7%, in comparison with the average in the country of 3.6%. On the other hand, the number of foreign visitors to our integrated centers has grown at the rate of 11.7%, compared to an average in the country of 7.2%. That gives you an idea that most of the tourism centers developed and promoted by Fonatur are growing at almost double the rate of "normal" growth of tourism within the country. And we believe it will continue in that fashion. Why? There is another reason. The presence of Fonatur guarantees, one way or the other, the maintenance of the place. You have been to Los Cabos, where we have a very important presence. However, not all of Los Cabos was developed by Fonatur. In the case of Cancún, the whole area was developed by us, and you will see, or you may already have seen, that the maintenance of the avenues, the lighting, the gardens, the whole thing is maintained by Fonatur. That is quite a guarantee of a very first-class, top-level maintenance. This has been another one of the important factors why investors prefer to invest, because they feel more comfortable in centers that Fonatur has developed. At the same time, that is also why more tourism comes to those places.
You promote investments for the development of Mexico’s favorite tourist destinations. Can you give us some figures in terms of how much has been invested into Mexico in the last year by foreign investors, but also by Mexican investors?
Last year’s figure is around the figure of 1.4 billion dollars, that is to say investment in basic tourism development, as far as hotels, restaurants, and so on are concerned. We expect that figure to grow this year around 15 to 20% in comparison to last year.
How do you want to achieve this 15 to 20%? You also said that the growth is nearly double the average of the country. What is your communication strategy? How do you attract investors to Mexico and to this sector?
We have several methods. Number one, we are trying to attend most of the seminars and most of the international expositions which investors of different condominiums, hotels and land developers normally attend, so we are doing direct promotion in most of those places. Second, we are also doing quite a bit of promotion by advertising most of our important points in various sophisticated magazines, such as Forbes. Number three, we also take advantage of the Tourism Ministry offices abroad, which are very helpful in promoting Mexico and making people aware of the opportunities. On the other hand, we’re also beginning to use much more Internet activity as a way to promote this investment. What we undertake as a basic strategy is that, in some cases, we associate with foreign investors and national investors, on a minority and temporary basis. These are two very important partners that are particularly helpful in our strategy.
ne of your biggest projects at the moment is the development of the port of Cancún. Can you tell us a little bit more about this project and who is investing? How much has been invested?
The port of Cancún is probably going to be the most important project at this time, on an individual project basis, that will be under development. Most likely, it will begin very soon – in the next month or two, perhaps. Now, this project is very strategically oriented, because it will give Cancún something that is required – namely, a very top, high-level, international, new golf course, which is badly needed. It will also give a very top-level, first-class international marina. That is also needed for the reinforcement of the development of Cancún. Also, some top new condominiums, hotels and houses will reinforce the basic development of Cancún. We estimate an investment in this particular project alone at approximately 490 million dollars.
And in terms of foreign investors, how many are participating?
It will basically be coordinated by a Mexican group, in association with Fonatur. Among the people that we have already been contemplating for this project are two Canadian groups who are very interested in participating.
Which group is the Mexican one?
The Mexican one at this point is a group by the name of Ahtlón.
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You are now promoting tourism and investment in Mexico. What would you say are interesting areas for investors to invest in here in Mexico?
I would say that it is the area of time-sharing. Time-sharing is an area that will have a very important role, and I think there is still a lot of room for that kind of activity. The other area is marine activity. I think the potential for the development of marine activity in Mexico is enormous. For instance, this year we will start a project called "Nautic Net" or "Nautic Root" of the Sea of Cortez in the Peninsula of Baja California. That is intended basically to attract marine activity from Arizona and California, and it will consist of the integrated activity of 21 ports constituting the "Nautic Net" of the Sea of Cortez. The literal translation from Spanish is "Nautic Ladder". The idea is to have a port located every 120 miles where the marine community in the Pacific is. Then going along the peninsula we will have a range of services every 120 miles in order to encourage people to come down, then go up the peninsula and then go down to Sonora and Sinaloa. That region is the basic one, and it has a tremendous potential because nowadays the number of boats that we receive from United States in that area is little more than 8000 a year. With this project fully implemented, we believe that the number can go to 70 or 80 thousand boats a year. Those are some of the possibilities. Of course, I think there is still a lot of potential for the cultural activity. We should take much more advantage of the marvelous historical, archeological ruins in our country, which are certainly of tremendous interest for the U.S., but are also important, and probably even more important, for the Europeans.
When we talked to the Ministry of Tourism, we also talked to the Turist Promotion Council. They told us about this new concept of promoting more tourist products, for example "Las Mayas", instead of promoting areas, such as Cancún, or Acapulco. To what extent do you work hand-in-hand with a concept like that?
Very much so. Completely hand-in-hand. I think we are institutionally very well linked, and we certainly try to carry out our promotion and design our strategies in a combined manner with the Ministry of Tourism. I also think that the Ministry of Tourism is truly doing a great job with a new, modern concept such as the one that you mentioned, and also with the creation of the Tourism Promotion Council.
Forbes Global might come back to Mexico in three years’ time to do a new report on Mexico. Where do you see Fonatur and the tourism sector within three years?
I think it will be playing a much more important and decisive role in something that is very important, namely regional development. Perhaps it is something that has not been mentioned enough. Take, for instance, the regions of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche. Those states are undergoing good agriculture development, because both the federal government, the state governments, and the people engaged in agriculture themselves, not to mention business people, have been promoting investment adequately in those sectors. Basically, however, there is another important fact: the trademark. Those three states are experiencing great success, in very important part because of Cancún. Cancun has had a tremendous success, because Cancún is by itself an important market for a good portion of the agri-food production that is now being developed in the agro-aquarian sector of Yucatan, Quintana Roo and Campeche. That is something that we often do not sell enough as part of the important aspect of tourism.
I also think we have to capture in a more specific way the different sectors of tourism that we want to focus on. That is why I mentioned earlier, for instance, the case of marine activity, as well as archeological and cultural tourism. We need to enhance our competitive advantage. For instance one of the new mega projects being planned by Fonatur is Palenque-Agua Azul in the state of Chiapas. Why? Because Palenque is one of the most important sites of archeological value in Mexico. Nearby, however, you also have Bonampak, Gánchila, Toniná. In other words, the entire area is somehow a center of Maya archeology. Secondly, just next to Palenque, 40 kilometers away - quite close – is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world, called Agua Azul. So what we are trying to do now with that project is to combine the natural beauty and the natural attractions such as this with archeological tourism. That is why we call this project Palenque-Agua Azul, and it will be one of the most important to be developed in the country.
Now a question on a more personal level. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, about your background? And what would you say has been your biggest achievement as Chief Executive Officer of Fonatur?
My background? Well, I have a very diversified background. Basically I was president of two private banks during my youth. After that, I went into politics and became governor of the State of Mexico, which is the largest in the country. Then I became Minister of Energy, overseeing entities such as Pemex, CFE, and so on. Then I became Ambassador to the European Community. So as you can see, I have a diversified curriculum, which more or less has given me the opportunity to be in touch with the national reality, with the potential, but at the same time to have an international view of how we can adopt that perspective, that potential of Mexico, within the international arena. That, I think, along with the private background, which gives one a sense of business, has been decisive in allowing me at Fonatur to really conceive some new, large projects, such as these ones that we are talking about. At the same time, access to some very important financial resources have allowed us to improve our position in a very sustained and substantial manner. Just to give you an idea, our revenue from tourism grew by 52% in 1999 compared to 1998. And in 1999 compared to 1998, we grew an additional 56% above that. So, those factors are what make us very optimistic about the future. Also, possibility our most important achievement in a more general sense has been the fact that we succeeded in making both the executive and legislative branches of the government, as well as private and social sectors in Mexico, more conscious of the tremendous potential that tourism has for the social and economic development of the country.
One last question: as you know, readers are mainly businessmen, potential investors world-wide. What is your final message to them, as a big player in the country?
I think that we are really trying to keep ourselves up-to-date, that we are trying to do things in a very modern way, and that we are very much oriented towards satisfying what growing markets are demanding in the different sectors. That is probably our basic message to them. I could probably also add that we have been very serious and professional in the handling of our projects, in order to really gain, first of all, confidence in the international market.
So this is the most important of the reasons… the confidence …?
I would say yes. |
© World INvestment NEws, 2000.
This is the electronic edition of the special country report on Mexico published in Forbes Global.
July 3rd 2000 Issue.
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MEXICO
