Cruise Ship Passengers Robbed in P.V.

"I was surprised to see nothing in Monday’s ‘Lectronic about the 22 Carnival cruise ship passengers who got robbed at gunpoint south of Puerto Vallarta the other day," writes Michael Robertson of the D.C.-based Fuji 40 Del Viento. "This is sure to stoke the anti-Mexico travel sentiment in the U.S. media, and may put pressure on the cruise ship operators to reduce the number of visits to Puerto Vallarta. It’s just a shame all around."

We didn’t run the story on Monday because ‘Lectronic was already packed, and we figured the story would hold until today. For those who didn’t see the reports, 22 passengers from the 3,000-berth Splendor were on a bus returning from a canopy tour at El Nogalito, just a few miles south of Puerto Vallarta, were indeed robbed of all their valuables at 5 p.m. by three armed and masked gunmen. Thankfully, nobody was injured.

As a result of the incident, Carnival is no longer offering the tour. It remains to be seen if they or any of the other cruise ship lines will decide to no longer call on the very popular destination.

This is a terrible black eye for Mexico, as it’s the first time we can remember tourists being specific targets of armed criminals. It’s also a terrible black eye for Puerto Vallarta, as the area has generally enjoyed a reputation for being very safe.

In a statement, Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, chief operating officer of the Mexico Tourism Board, called the robbery "a rare and isolated incident," adding, "while 22 people were involved in this incident, in all of 2011, 22 million (22.7 million, to be precise) international tourists visited Mexico, in addition to the many millions who arrived by cruise line. The vast majority of these visitors enjoyed their stay in Mexico without any incident.”

In a similar vein, Secretary of Tourism Gloria Guevara said in an interview last week that Mexico’s drug-related problems are limited to about 80 municipios, which she likened to counties, out of about 2,500. (The U.S., by comparison, has about 3,140 counties.)

The U.S. State Department on February 8 renewed its warning about travel to Mexico, adding four states to the previous roster of 10 that it says have areas that are unsafe. The beginning of the warning said, "Millions of U.S. citizens safely visit Mexico each year for study, tourism, and business, including more than 150,000 who cross the border every day.”

Mexico’s economy is based on tourism, remittances from the United States, and oil. Despite all the narco violence, Mexico’s economy is doing very, very well, thank you. In fact, it grew at 5.5% last year, the fastest rate in 10 years — a rate President Obama would give his right arm to have. And unlike most emerging market countries, Mexico doesn’t have high inflation. But if there’s enough crime against tourists, it will be a terrible blow to the economy and hurt a lot of wonderful people.

It’s a real bummer for potential visitors, too, because not only is Mexico right next to the United States, but it offers one of the biggest-bang-for-the-buck cruising, tourist and retirement living bargains in the world. If we had to guess, we’d say the same vacation would cost one-third or less in Mexico than in the Caribbean. Furthermore, except for the criminal element, Mexico is home to about the nicest group of people in the world.

The incident is not going to stop us from returning to Puerto Vallarta or Mexico, and we’d be surprised if any cruiser bails because of it. But it’s nevertheless terrible publicity that’s going to freak out a lot of people. You’re not kidding when you say it’s a shame all around.