There has been increasing concern about travel to Mexico in recent weeks. We were on a conference call last week with representatives of Mexico tourism, several large U.S. Mexico tourism companies, and the editors of Travel Weekly (a trade publication for travel agents). The summary of what they said:
The State Department advisory is not discouraging Americans from traveling to Mexico. Rather in the February 20th update to an existing Travel Alert, the State Department is making Americans aware of security concerns in certain parts of Mexico and asking Americans to be aware of the situation so that their visits to Mexico are safe and they are well informed of the situation.
The areas that are mentioned in the advisory are 5 border counties near the border between the U.S. and Mexico. These are 5 of the over 1900 counties in Mexico — a very small part of a large country. The resort destinations are not close, by any means, to the counties with the issues. The resort destinations are over 600 miles from the counties in the advisory. Mexico tourist towns, such as Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos and such have always taken the security of tourists to be of the highest priority.
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The cruise lines continue their Mexico itineraries (we were on the Mariner of the Seas last month which now is sailing 7 night Mexican Riviera cruises out of L.A. - other cruise lines sail a similar itinerary). We do recommend taking normal precautions when visiting Mexico. We suggest sticking with organized tours rather than venturing out on your own.