Push to Secure Acapulco for Tourism Shows Progress Nathaniel Parish Flannery - Fusion
go to original December 27, 2014

El Universal Update: A full hotel occupancy on Wednesday December 31 is expected in Acapulco.

Enrique Diaz Clavel, an 81-year-old historian, who has written about Acapulco since 1953, recently visited the Boca Chica Hotel in the city’s historic district. “From the 40s to the 70s, that was the Golden Age of Acapulco” he explained. The modern era of tourism started in the 1920s after the first highway to Mexico City opened.  The tourism trade expanded after a small airport was built and “Acapulco started growing up into the hills up from the beach,” Diaz explained. Acapulco quickly became a getaway for Hollywood stars such as John Wayne and even hosted Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding. “In this era more and more hotels came. As a boy I remember seeing American planes coming and landing in the water,” Diaz recalled.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Acapulco continued to expand, but also lost some of its sheen. Stately hotels in the Acapulco Viejo district fell into disrepair and seedy clubs and bars sprung up along the beachfront, even while investors built new luxury resorts outside of the city and residents expanded slums on the periphery further up into the hills. “Acapulco grew, but with problems,” Diaz said.



As tourism falls, residents wonder what will happen if the main engine of their state’s economy sputters to a stop. Guerrero already has Mexico’s third highest rate of poverty and the highest rate of people working “off the books” in the informal economy.  Tourist revenues are one of few connections Guerrero has to the global economy.

One positive sign is that hotel reservations for the Christmas and New Years vacation period, although lower than last year, have increased slightly from lows reported in November.

Looking out at the glimmering water swelling gently below the Boca Chica Hotel restaurant’s balcony, Diaz said he’s confident that the Acapulco of his youth will make a comeback.

“Right now it’s going through a crisis, but it will pass,” he said.

Read the whole story at Fusion

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