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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Finally Some Good News on Travel in Mexico

Poor old Mexico. Talk about kicking a guy when he’s down! Just when the price of oil plummets, American jobs dry up, and the fear of drug violence cuts tourism in half, along comes swine flu to cut it in half again.

OK, it’s time for a little good news. In May, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control lifted its recommendation against travel to Mexico; the swine flu isn’t so bad after all, and it probably didn’t come here from Mexico in the first place.

And now a little more good news. Drug violence is not a threat to ordinary tourists like you and me. This is according to the Mexican government, the U.S. State Department and me. Let me give you a little background.

I had driven to, in and around Mexico with impunity and pleasure, but that was years ago. Now I was planning two road trips, one from the border to central Mexico, another from Mexico City to Cuernavaca to Oaxaca and back, and my friends were alarmed.

“What about the drug war?”

“Aren’t you afraid of being kidnapped?”

No. At least I didn’t think so. The dangers of Mexico have always been exaggerated, and I have always taken them with a grain of salt. The drug trade is nothing new, and poor people have been kidnapping rich ones for money in the Third World and even in the First World (Italy) for a long time. Besides, I’m not rich.

Still, news reports in the weeks before I left caused my grain of salt to grow smaller. One said that President Felipe Calderon’s assault on the drug cartels had started a “civil war.” Another called the kidnappings an epidemic. A third compared Mexico to Pakistan and described it as a “failed state.” And an official at an Air Force base in New Mexico advised those in his command who planned to drive into Mexico to do so in broad daylight in caravans with cell phones at the ready.

Hmmm.

I called Sanborn’s, the American insurance people who have been providing auto insurance for American motorists in Mexico for 60 years, and asked if they advised any special precautions.

“Only to stick to main routes and not to drive at night, but that’s mainly because of animals that wander onto roads.”

“Have you had problems with tourists being held up or hijacked?”

“No. We wouldn’t be insuring them if we did.” (A review of Sanborn’s rates indicates no dramatic increases in recent months or years which would likely have occurred if theft or damage claims had gone up.)

OK. I’d go, but I’d avoid Ciudad Juarez where the violence is the worst. I’d cross the border on a Sunday morning, the quietest time in any week, and I’d do it at Laredo, where the cartels recently seemed to have called a truce.

What follows are facts, anecdotes and opinions.

Here are the facts:

Mexican highways are excellent and well-marked. Most major cities are now connected by well-engineered toll roads that have limited access and are patrolled by federal police and Green Angels, motorist-assistant trucks manned by mechanics.

Customs offices are clean and customs officials are professional and efficient. Neither used to be the case.

Gas stations are also vastly improved. Almost all now include a convenience store and some even have food courts.

And the vehicle stock is better than years ago; gone are most of the lopsided buses and one-eyed trucks of the past.

Here are the anecdotes:

David Tramp is an American who has lived in Ensenada, Mexico, for three years and sells real estate. He drives his Hummer into California through Tijuana, one of the hotbeds of drug violence, about four times a month. Has he ever had or seen any trouble? “Never.” Does he have any advice for tourists? “Stay out of high-crime areas where there are drugs and prostitutes. Common sense.”

Fiona McNeill is a school teacher in her 60s with very little Spanish who is working in a Waldorf School near San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. She drove there alone in nine days from her home in Bend, Oregon, without incident except being short-changed in a gas station.

Ramon Morales is a Harley Davidson motorcycle mechanic who came to Mexico with his pregnant wife and three-year-old daughter when he was laid off from his job in San Antonio. Despite his Hispanic name, he has red hair and a Texas twang. His wife was reluctant to come. “Now I can’t get her to go home. Hell, I gotta get back and find some work.”

Then are the drug wars a figment of someone’s imagination?

Not at all, but they are not a problem for tourists. One traveler I talked to compares them to the turf wars of inner city gangs or the internecine cocaine wars of the 1970s and ’80s in South Florida made famous in the television show “Miami Vice” and the movie “Scarface.” “People were dying all over the place, and no one stopped going to Florida.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton drew the same analogy on March 26 while speaking in Monterrey, Mexico.

Then is the press in the United States overreacting?

One observer I spoke with thought it is—at least in part in response to political pressure. Fanning the flames of the issue are the anti-immigration forces in whose interest it is to stir up fear of Mexico and Mexicans. “I think this is about ‘the fence’ that anti-immigration groups want to build from the Gulf to the Pacific. Almost no one who lives down on the border wants this wall,” he said. Indeed, Texas’s conservative Republican governor, Rick Perry, has opposed the wall, and Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano once famously said when she was governor of Arizona, “If you build a 50-foot high wall, somebody will find a 51-foot ladder.”

But alarmist news accounts continue. A headline on an article in the San Antonio Express News in February announced, “Mexican Murders, American Victims,” and led with the statement that “230 U.S. citizens have been slain in Mexico’s escalating wave of violence since 2003.” After some alarming claims, the article implicitly admits that two-thirds of those killed were involved in the drug trade or gang activity. Many of the others were in high-crime areas. In fact, only three of the 230 deaths have resulted in protests by the U.S. State Department, seeming to support the Mexican government’s contention that “Tourists wishing to visit cathedrals, museums and other cultural centers are not at risk.” Despite the Express News’ claim that its investigation “examined hundreds of records,” it failed to report a single instance of an ordinary tourist on vacation being murdered.

A CNN report on “Anderson Cooper 360” that aired on March 5 from Rosarito Beach in Baja California, warned American students of the dangers of traveling to Mexico for spring break, reporting that 20 murders, including some beheadings, had taken place in the community in the previous year. Only late in the report and then parenthetically was it noted that none of the 20 murder victims was either American or a tourist.

I entered Mexico with considerable trepidation, sticking to toll roads and watching both my clock and rearview mirror. When I departed a month later, I did so at my leisure using secondary roads and leaving even these to explore the villages and countryside. As a motor tourist I did not feel threatened by the drug violence or kidnappings I had read and heard about. And I was able to take advantage of the very favorable exchange rate that has made Mexico once again the best travel bargain available while rediscovering that country’s charm, beauty and friendliness.

Should you go? You’ll have to decide that for yourself. As for me, I’ve already rented an apartment in San Miguel de Allende for a month early next year. I’m going back, and I’m driving.

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Mexico has been reduced to a single, small, geographical piece of this earth. If there is a murder in Michoacan, then the presumption of the 24-hour news cycle has been that it is too dangerous to travel to Rosarito Beach even though it is thousands of miles away.

Weekly Fishing Column: Mexico is safer than you think

According to Arturo Martinez from the Mexican Tourism office, no tourists have been killed in the drug war violence throughout Mexico.

Still, on a recent CNN news report, U.S. citizens were warned not to travel to Mexico. Well what part of Mexico was CNN referring to? Mexico is a huge country and to say travel to Mexico is dangerous is not only inadequate information but very misleading.

Please do not misunderstand me. If you want to find trouble in Tijuana, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Paris, I have no doubt that with the proper directions, you will find trouble and the dregs of society you seek.

If however, you use common sense, stay out of bad neighborhoods, do not travel at night etc., your journey to Mexico should be not only safe, but a memorable trip with lifetime memories.

Mexico is not standing still amid the criticism, unjust or not. If you have any trouble at all once you cross the border into Baja California Norte, all you have to do is dial 078 and press send on your cell phone. You will be connected with English speaking Mexican travel officials eager to help you, drive out to your location or assist you in anyway. I have personally tried this system on many occasions and never failed to get connected to the Mexican travel bureau.

If you have an emergency in Mexico, you can also dial 911 on your cell phone and you will immediately be connected with and English speaker ready to assist you.

For private boaters, Mexico has announced as search and rescue fleet. The commanders of these Ensenada-based vessels have been trained by the U.S. Coast Guard and speak excellent English. The sole purpose of the team is to help boaters in distress. Their vessels are capable of more than 50 knots and can quickly respond to rescue a distressed boater.

A recent visit by officials from Sportfishing Association of California resulted in the comment that they had great equipment, were well-trained and had friendly personnel. This will greatly increase the desire of yachts, sailboats, and fishermen to go south of the border again. The unit has a 24-hour Radio Watch on Marine Channel 16 and can also be reached by telephone from the United States by calling 011 52 646-1-72-40-00.

Holiday outings: Long Beach Sportfishing has two Fourth of July cruises departing at 7p.m. and returning at 10.

The cost is $20 for adults and $10 for children, 12 years old and under. Limit is four kids per adult. Information: 562-432-8993.

philip@976-TUNA.com

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