Larry French from the Baja Real Estate Group takes us on an open house tour of unit 802 Punta Marena in the luxurious privacy of Club Marena.

The Most Spectacular Residence on Baja’s Gold Coast!!! There is nothing else that can compare to Club Marena’s “Punta Marena” wrap around corner condominiums with nearly 4000sqft of refined luxury with views from everywhere. Each of the 3 bedrooms is oceanfront with a private terrace. Watch the sun rise on Bahia Descanso and set on the open Pacific Ocean every day. There is nothing else that can compare.

The developers of Club Marena have always created the finest residences in the area and the resort stands alone as the most spectacular & exclusive that Baja has to offer.

If you are looking for true luxury in a location that has drawn some of the most successful people in the world then you have found it in the crowning glory of these very exclusive units. There are only a dozen like these and very few come for resale. This property takes it one step further as the interior was designed by a famous Los Angeles architect. The pictures tell the story of this modern masterpiece.

Book an appointment to experience this property today.

See this and other Club Marena listings for sale here:

http://www.owninginmexico.com/Playas_de_Rosarito/Baja_California/Homes/rosarito/Club_Marena/Agent/Listing_39604429.html

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Legal Online Poker Mexico

In September 2010, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld a law making playing poker online a felony.
On April 15, 2011, in U. S. v. Scheinberg et al. (10 Cr. 336), the Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down three major poker .com websites of Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, and Absolute Poker, and seized several of their bank accounts. A grand jury has charged 11 defendants, including the founders of the poker sites, with bank fraud, money laundering, and violating gambling laws. The prosecutors are claiming that the sites tricked and bribed U.S. banks to receive profits from online gambling, an act that violated UIGEA. The same day, former Senator D’Amato released a comment on behalf of the PPA. He asserts that, “Online poker is not a crime and should not be treated as such.” D’Amato made no comment on the specific charges raised but promised a response once the “full facts become available.” He responded in the Washington Post on April 22. The actions by the Department of Justice were also criticized by gaming law experts, including Professor I. Nelson Rose.”

If you want to keep on playing Online poker legally, just relocate to Rosarito Beach with all the amenities of a five star resort at a fraction of the cost, just 20 minutes south of the border and totally safe. Just call or email Miguel Sedano 858-433-0561 info@rentinginmexico.com for complete information. www.RentingInMexico.com

- Description -
This home has it all…PRICE …VIEW and LOCATION More white water views then not. This 2 bedroom plus a Den or 3rd bedroom is located in just one row up from the beach and has views from almost every. The master bedroom not only has a white water view, you can hear the surf as you sleep. A garage with a work bench, a laundry room, you own private entry, dimmers on all lights, new carpeting, new tile and much more.

See the full listing at http://www.owninginmexico.com/Rosarito/Baja_California/Ho… along with other similar homes in the area.

- Description -
Casa overlooking the lake, the clubhouse and ocean, this hacienda style villa has all the comfort and cozy feeling that one could want. This three bedroom, three bath 2200 square ft house has been newly refurbished and tastefully decorated.

Villa de Vino looks out across the golf course, clubhouse lake and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Backyard patio invites entertaining with a stunning sunset backdrop and a pool nearby. Located on a quiet cul de sac and close to miles and miles of hiking trails or bike riding.

Twenty-four hour security with gated entrance and patrolling guards. New to market.

For more details on this real estate listing in Ensenada visit:
http://www.owninginmexico.com/Listing_33909914.html

For more Mexico Real Estate visit:
http://www.owninginmexico.com

NAOS Living is an elite beachfront residential resort located at the Northern end of Rosarito Beach in what is known as the ‘Riviera Baja’. Host to a diversity of amenities, NAOS Living focuses on health and wellness both as a theme and as a lifestyle, providing comfort, luxury and a privileged location featuring a 4 mile stretch of sandy beach, near by commodities and unsurpassed views of the Coronado Islands. For a complete list of NAOS amenities visit http://www.naosliving.com.

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For more information on Calafia Condos visit http://www.calafiacondos.com. Click here for even more real estate in Mexico

Santa Barbara at Bajamar offers full Concierge Services at what it is one of the best locations in Ensenada, especially if you are passionate for golfing. All of the condos in Santa Barbara have an ocean view and come full with appliances and wine storage.

For more information on Santa Barbara at Bajamar visit http://www.santabarbaratbajamar.net

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Tourism in Mexico is up again despite the perception that it is not safe because of the drug-related violence that has claimed thousands of Mexican lives in recent years, according to a binational panel in San Diego on Tuesday.

Ernesto Coppel Kelly, a Mexican resort entrepreneur, said now is a good time to travel to Mexico. Troy Orem / SanDiegoRed.com

“The perception is that we are losing ground but it’s the other way,” said Ernesto Coppel Kelly, one of Mexico’s leading tourism entrepreneurs.

Coppel was speaking at a roundtable discussion organized by the Mexico Center of the San Diego Regional Chamber that focused on U.S tourism to Mexico.

The panel included Baja California, Tijuana and San Diego tourism and transportation officials and the editor-in-chief of the San Diego Business Journal.

Coppel, chairman of the Pueblo Bonito resorts and spas in Mazatlan and Los Cabos, said more than 22 million foreign tourists visited Mexico last year, a 12 percent increase from the previous year and another increase is expected this year. More than six million visitors last year were Americans, he said.

“With better news from the media we could have better business,” Coppel said.

He said later during an interview that tourism was up largely because prices were cut to attract foreign visitors.

“We have bargains. Our prices are so low because of the economy and because of the bad media we’ve been getting,” Coppel said. “Our rates are the lowest.”

Ernesto Coppel

Most of the panelists faulted the news media for fueling the perception that Mexico is not safe.

Reo Carr, editor-in-chief of the San Diego Business Journal, said journalists were doing their jobs reporting events taking place in Mexico.

“I don’t think we’re reporting things that aren’t happening.”

“I know that they are true,” Coppel said. “But let’s confine it to its correct proportion.”

Panelists expressed concern that the drug-related violence in Mexico continued to overshadow the positive economic ties between the two countries. The violence also was not being put in the proper context for the average American to understand.

“We have a problem. Of course we do,” Coppel said. “But we’re making lots of progress. Ninety nine percent of the people who die are criminals,” he said. “The roots of the problem are being attacked. We are winning this fight against these gangs. We cannot finish it in one month. It’s going to take a few years or more. We want order. We want peace.”

Carr agreed the news media need to provide more balanced coverage of Mexico but that the country’s image is going to take a while to change.

“A few spectacular crime sprees by the drug cartels completely change the perception,” he said.

Juan Tintos Funcke, Baja California’s secretary of tourism, replied, “Yes, we do have our Columbines. We do have our incidents where a violent act makes the front page but it’s the same in other countries.”

Mariano Escobedo, president of the Tijuana Convention and Visitors Bureau, said tourist spots in the city remain safe and Americans are starting to return to visit.

“To us violence is almost a non-issue,” Escobedo said. He noted a 26 percent increase in American travelers visiting Tijuana last year as compared to 2009.

“There’s violence in Tijuana, in the hills. It’s gangs versus gangs. They’re not targeting Americans. There is no spillover into tourist sections,” Escobedo said.

In fact, a much of the crime that occurs in Tijuana occurs in its eastern and southern neighborhoods, far away from financial and tourist districts.

Sporadically, though, there have been killings in these commercial areas, mostly involving street-level drug dealers, according to authorities.

His biggest concern is that violence happening in other Mexican border states will be associated with Tijuana and continue to cast a negative image over the city, he said.

Tintos said his office earlier this year formed a Baja California image committee made up of Americans who live in the Mexican border state who want to get the word out that it is a safe place to visit and live. It has also hired a public relations firm to “go after the news media, in a good way.”

“There are a lot of good things happening in Baja that we have not been very good at promoting,” Tintos said.

Leonel.sanchez@gmail.com

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TIJUANA — Baja California has been losing cruise-ship visitors, sales of coastal real estate have plummeted and many resort hotel rooms sit empty. Yet the range of tourism offerings for visitors to the state has never been greater.

Fans cheer on the Xoloitzcuintles soccer team in Tijuana, which has developed a growing following on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly after its ascension to Mexico’s Primera Division in May. / Photo by K.C. Alfred * U-T

Among this year’s choices: a large agricultural fair in Mexicali, new fine-dining restaurants in Tijuana, an expanded wine festival in Ensenada, and surfing and rock-climbing classes in Rosarito Beach.

In the wake of a difficult decade for tourism, government and private promoters in Baja California are finding more ways to attract visitors as they launch into the traditional summer peak season. The state’s tourism secretary, Juan Tintos, speaks of “reorganizing, redefining our strategies in the tourism sector.”

That means continuing to target Hispanics living in the United States but also relying more heavily on Mexican domestic tourism. It means depending far less on the traditional flow of Americans to Baja California’s beaches and focusing on new niches: athletes and sports fans, food and wine devotees, convention visitors and medical tourists.

When things were going well, “the state didn’t have a need to look in general at what it can offer,” said Laura Torres, whose family owns and operates Rosarito Beach Hotel. Then a series of crises in recent years forced the search for a broader range of offerings.

Torres, the head of Baja California’s Business Coordinating Council, has started a tour agency that takes guests on excursions such as whale-watching trips, visits to a Spanish mission, rappelling classes in nearby La Mision.

“We have so much to offer, that we’re ourselves getting to know our state,” she said.

Jahdiel Vargas, a tourism consultant in Tijuana, said the region is still evolving from the mindset of “traditional 1980s tourism,” when “it didn’t matter what you did as long as you were in a foreign country.” The latest trends in tourism worldwide — where many visitors now seek out specific activities — are forcing specialization and different promotional strategies for Baja California, he said.

Derrik Chinn (at center) runs Turista Libre, a monthly tour of various "ordinary" places throughout Tijuana. He is a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana. / Photo by David Maung

“The tourists who are trying to find new experiences in Mexico are pushing us to do better,” Vargas said.

A decade ago, lengthy waits at ports of entry along the San Diego sector dealt a severe blow to cross-border tourism, the result of tighter U.S. border security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In subsequent years, the U.S. economic downturn, the H1N1 swine-flu scare and reports of drug-gang violence in Mexico served to further discourage American visitors to Baja California.

Aiming for a recovery, Tijuana’s Tourism and Conventions Committee has sought out new markets.

“Blue-eyed, blond tourism is not coming down, by a long shot,” said Mariano Escobedo, the committee’s president. In its place, he said, local, state and national Mexican tourists are increasingly filling the void.

Figures from Banco de Mexico show that tourist expenditures in Baja California dropped from $1.25 billion in 2006 to $1.01 billion in 2009, while the numbers of international visitors fell from 27.1 million to 24.1 million in that period.

The downward trend was stemmed last year with a slight increase in both counts, and tourism promoters have been taking heart.

Tourism accounted for about one-tenth of Baja California’s revenues last year, generating about $835 million, Tintos said. He hopes to raise that figure to $855 million this year.

“We’re not abandoning the American market, we’re changing our strategy” with methods such as emphasizing the use of social media and reaching out more to Canadians and U.S. Hispanics, Tintos said.

According to hotel occupancy figures, the signs have been encouraging on holiday weekends — including Easter and Memorial Day — especially in Rosarito, San Felipe and other beach destinations.

One sign of the changing times is Turista Libre, a monthly tour led by Derrik Chinn, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana.

His day trips draw between 25 and 40 participants who come to experience Tijuana like a Tijuanense might on his or her day off: visits to an indoor roller-skating rink, a Xolos soccer game, Tijuana’s cultural center, the El Vergel water park in eastern Tijuana — site of the June 25 tour.

The idea, Chinn said, is to “put an outsider in the shoes of an insider for the day.”

San Diegans, he said, do “hear good things about Tijuana amid all the bad news. They’ll catch whiffs of good things — like ‘Tijuana has an amazing music scene, Tijuana has an amazing arts scene’ — but they don’t know how to go about finding it.”

BAJA CALIFORNIA TOURISM: WHAT’S CHANGING

More Mexican visitors

*The domestic market has become increasingly important for Baja California’s tourism industry in recent years.

*More than 90 percent of the 18,000 out-of-state visitors to Mexicali’s annual Agrobaja agricultural fair this year were from other parts of Mexico, according to the event’s coordinators.

*Tijuana’s Tourism and Conventions Committee reports that domestic demand accounts for 80 percent of hotel-room rentals.

*The Rosarito Ensenada 50-Mile Fun Bicycle Ride, a twice-yearly event that traditionally has relied heavily on U.S. tourists, has been attracting an increasingly larger proportion of Mexican riders. “Baja tourism is reinventing itself, and we that bring tourists down are adapting to its changes,” said Gary Foster, the ride’s promoter.

Sports events

*The Baja California High Performance Center, a sprawling athletic facility that opened in 2003, has allowed Tijuana to host national and international competitions. The state is making a bid to host Mexico’s National Olympics in 2013. The event drew 13,000 athletes and 20,000 supporters to the area when it was held in 2009.

*The Xoloitzcuintles soccer team in Tijuana has developed a growing following on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, particularly after its ascension to Mexico’s Primera Division in May.

Conventions

*A new convention center is under construction between Tijuana and Rosarito Beach. It is scheduled to open in 2012 and will be able to accommodate close to 5,000 people, state officials said.

*Tijuana’s Tourism and Conventions Committee has 20 national conventions on its calendar for this year. Among groups that have gathered in the city so far are the Mexican Association of Public Accountants, the Mexican Volleyball Federation and the National Congress of Urological Gynecology.

Food and wine

*Ensenada’s Fiestas de la Vendimia, the annual grape harvest festivities, drew close to 35,000 visitors last year. Organizers expect to surpass that number during this year’s event in August.

*Mexico’s federal tourism secretary has listed Valle de Guadalupe and surrounding wine-producing areas among the nation’s 10 major tourist routes.

*More microbreweries are pulling beer aficionados to the state. Many of them will be featured next month at a beer festival in Tijuana.

*Baja California cuisine has been receiving greater international recognition. For example, celebrity chef Rick Bayless is focusing on Baja cuisine during the eighth season of his PBS program, “Mexico, One Plate at a Time,” which is scheduled to air this year.

sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com • (619) 293-1716 • Twitter: @sandradibble

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Two Baja Real Estate Firms Merge To Become Powerful Force In Northern Baja

According to Max Katz, owner of Baja Real Estate Group, the new company will be called Baja Real Estate Group but will operate two divisions, Beachside Realty in Rosarito and Baja Premiere Properties in Bajamar and Ensenada. A new office is already planned in the Guadalupe Valley, just north of Ensenada.

“Mimi Mills and associates have an outstanding reputation in the area,” said Max Katz, “and her long history throughout northern Baja will contribute greatly to the strength of our new organization.”

Bajamar Premier Properties began within the gated oceanfront golf community of Bajamar, since 2005 guiding American and Canadian expatriates through safe and successful transactions.

“Max and his wife Kathy Katz represent some of the most respected real estate developers in the region and, as we combine our forces, we will be able to serve more new developments and spread our expertise to those who need our services,” said Marianne “Mimi” Mills.

New residential developments currently represented by the Baja Real Estate Group include Calafia Resort and Villas in the area known as Calafia, 10 Miles south of Rosarito; Palacio del Mar in El Descanso, 20 miles south of Rosarito, and Naos, where sales recently began in the northern beach corridor of Rosarito

Kathy Katz, Max Katz & Marianne 'Mimi' Mills

“This is a perfect way to expand our business without spending a great deal of money,” Kathy Katz added. “We can serve more clients by combining all of our sales agents into one company.

“Agent support will be the key to our success, making sure their sellers and buyers have all the tools needed in today’s market,” she continued. “Our team will be unmatched.”

Eduardo Rosales, president of the real estate trade association AMPI in Rosarito, echoed the remarks of the new business partners.

“The combination of these highly regarded real estate professionals, now united together, is a perfect balance for the continually changing real estate market here in northern Baja,” Rosales said.

A 16-year veteran of real estate sales in the United States, Mills retired to the golf course Bajamar community in 2002 but couldn’t stay away from assisting other Americans in either buying or building their dream home.

“Our brokerage prides itself on trust, integrity and hard work to bring our buyers and sellers together in the most beneficial and profitable manner for all parties, she said. “I am delighted to team up with Max and Kathy Katz, who share my same dedication to ethics.”

Max and Kathy Katz founded Baja Real Estate Group in 2009, after successfully running a Prudential Northern Baja office in Rosarito for three years. Both have over 20 years of experience doing business in Mexico.

To contact either Baja Premier Properties or Beachside Realty, visit the Baja Real Estate Group’s website at www.bajaREgroup.com.

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