| Cancún has one
of the highest employment rates and per capita incomes in Mexico.
To better understand the glamorous image Cancún has
sculpted for itself, it's necessary to review its relatively
short history. In 1968 the only town in the area was the small
fishing village of Puerto Juárez, population 500. That
year FONATUR, the national tourism development agency, announced
that it would develop a megaresort in this relatively new federal
territory (Quintana Roo became a state in 1973). The first resort
hotel opened in 1974, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The original management plan for Cancún called for a
great number of green areas that were to be left as open space.
But the success of the hotels called for expansion, and urban
encroachment won out over conservation.
The financial success of this development plan has colored
the notion of ecotourism in the region. The focus has been on
creating environmentally friendly megahotels that cater to the
affluent elite of the ecotourism market.
Smaller efforts are simply drowned out by the chorus of loud
advertisements and sales promotions at the Cancún airport
or at information kiosks. Ask for information on the Sian Ka'an
Biosphere Reserve or smaller parks, and you'll likely elicit
a blank stare. As tourism agents don't get commissions from
these trips, they're not that interested in distributing information
about the alternatives.
In 1996 Mario Villanueva Madrid, the governor of Quintana Roo,
proposed a Maya Coast ecotourism corridor. The project attempts
to replicate the success of the tourism corridor between Cancún
and Tulum. The effort to construct environmentally friendly
hotels is noteworthy and commendable, but unless the development
also supports conservation measures and includes and benefits
local communities, it's hard to call the project ecotourism.
HURRICANE WILMA
Hurricane Wilma pounded this Caribbean resort city for several
days in October 2005. The storm became a Category 5 hurricane
in less than 24 hours and pounded the city for two days and
nights. Despite the unusual strength of the hurricane, no casualties
among tourists were reported.
To reclaim the beaches Belgian company Jan
de Nul used two ships that sucked up sand 20 miles off the
coast, carried it to the shore and laid down half a mile of
beach a week.
The resort is one of the most popular in the world and it is
in the process of recovering from the impact of Hurricane
Wilma. Public and private investment for the rebuilding
totaled $1.5 billion.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT CRUISE SHIPS
Environmentalists in the coastal area have long complained
that cruise ship traffic along Quintana Roo's tourist corridor
could damage the Maya Reef. In December 1997 those fears were
realized when the Leeward, a Norwegian-flagged ship of the Norway
Cruise Line, sailed directly over Los Cuevones reef, part of
the Isla Mujeres marine park near Cancún, shaving off
80 percent of that reef.
Authorities filed charges against the cruise line and environmentalists
mourned the destruction. Oceanographer Roman Bravo Prieto told
television reporters that it would take 500 years or more for
the reef to recover. ''The damage is worse than if a full-force
hurricane had run ashore,'' he said.
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