La Evolución del Turismo Social en Zihuatanejo

Are you asking me or Zihuaholic?

I recall the turning point in Zihuatanejo's evolution where we lost our prosperous future. It has actually happened twice, the first time being the arrival of the federal government wanting to build Ixtapa in Zihuatanejo, eventually deciding on the next bay to the north after finding resistance among locals to giving up their homes and lands. The development of Ixtapa stole Zihuatanejo's prosperity for wealthy and well connected outsiders.

I also recall the first time I participated in a local political meeting at the invitation of my wife back in 1990 when the mayor was her cousin. They were debating spending a huge sum of money to remodel Paseo del Pescador (déjù vu), and a huge amate tree had already been cut down in the zócalo and most locals were quite understandably upset about it so the meeting room at the old Palacio Municipal in front of the zócalo was crowded to capacity. After listening to the presentation by the mayor and his underlings about the wonderful new modern look our waterfront and plaza would have and seeing that absolutely no one was going to speak up to question anything of substance or offer any alternatives, even though I was still technically a tourist at the time and my Spanish was far from fluent, I felt obliged to offer my dos centavitos, so I calmly and clearly suggested to my wife's cousin that the money would be much better spent on infrastructure such as sewage treatment because essentially all they were doing was putting makeup on a patient dying of cancer because the deteriorating water quality in the bay was already noticeable and I thought the time was then to nip that problem in the bud. There were a few seconds of silence after I stopped speaking and I wondered if I was about to get fed to the sharks or disappeared. But my wife's cousin broke into that wonderful grin of his as if he understood me perfectly well and thanked me for my opinion. I later learned that no one had ever spoken in that manner to our presidente municipal, and it wasn't until about 15 or 20 years later that I heard other people here speak up similarly saying practically the same thing I said about a similar remodeling project. Now of course speaking up (not just complaining) is much more common thanks to groups of professionals and concerned citizens who form organizations to represent segments of our society. But at the time I was a novelty way ahead of the times. I earned my wife's cousin's respect that day and we enjoyed a very warm relationship afterwards, and it also turned out that I was right about infrastructure since we eventually had a terrible time with failing wastewater treatment plants and we still have outdated infrastructure in place in parts of town from that same period that the city is trying to play catch-up finding and replacing. So I like to think I at least set an example or cracked the door open a bit that others would eventually follow.

But the most devastating turning point in our history occurred with the first opposition party mayor in 2002 who welcomed the land invasions of our hillsides that forever eliminated the prosperous and healthy future Zihuatanejo had previously envisioned for itself and counted on, and all of a sudden a much bleaker future appeared before us, with insurmountable problems for which we would never have the funding to fix. What was even more frustrating was to see well-meaning but rather poorly informed foreigners help those land invaders to carry out their fechorías. Something that unfortunately continues to this day.

Regarding tourism, the biggest impact came with the building of the Autopista Siglo XXI from here to Morelia that allowed folks from El Bajío region to come here much more easily. The first tour buses we used to get were often from Mexico City coming up from Acapulco, and they were so few that we really didn't complain too much about them parking at La Ropa or wherever, although they eventually caused my mother to move to Ixtapa from La Ropa after the La Ropa road through the huerta was paved because they would often park in front of her home and she couldn't stand the noise and diesel fumes all day long. But with the completion of the autopista, tour operators inland saw a new economic opportunity and they began selling cheap tours, so many that we now have some real problems because of too many low-budget tourists. Buses have always been the preferred mode of travel for all classes of Mexicans. The buses were and still are often quite luxurious, and if you take a tour with a group of friends the costs are quite reasonable. So to say all bus tourists are middle- or lower-class is a huge mistake. The difference is what those buses do when they get here. If you visit any other destination by bus you arrive at a bus terminal and from there take a taxi or bus or other form of public transportation to the beach or the zócalo or even to your hotel. But because buses have always been allowed in Ixtapa it followed logically that tour operators would send them directly to La Ropa Beach even though we consider La Ropa a special beach for tourists with at least moderate purchasing power. But these new tourists bring everything with them including their food, and many don't even spend a night in any local lodging like they used to. However, enough patronize the illegal restaurants and the wandering vendors that those people and their families fight for the buses' "right" to arrive to La Ropa, and then politics gets involved because these ambulantes represent blocs of voters. Thus the new concrete mercadito at La Ropa where ambulantes were put 30 years ago to get them off the beach, something that was supposed to be temporary and in fact that never worked. Now those folks claim "rights" they don't have, but hey, there's that brand spanking new mercado that was built thanks to a public contract and a mayor with a concrete company hoping to get re-elected. But I digress.

The other part of the equation gumming up the works are the bureaucrats and political appointees who work in government tourist offices who seek to justify their jobs by providing what we know locally as "cifras alegres" or "happy stats" regarding the arrival of tourists. They never really concern themselves with the purchasing power of tourists although they like to overestimate the spending particularly by cruise ship passengers and tourists in general. Inflated numbers with obscure origins help them look good in front of their bosses and help them justify and keep their jobs, so the more warm bodies they can count INSTEAD OF RACK ROOM OCCUPANCY, a more reliable number for tourism officials, the better it makes them look. That's where the "turismo social" as we call it puts the cream on the tacos for these public tourist industry officials and bureaucrats. I have always been for the elimination of the state and federal tourism offices because I believe tourism is best promoted by locals. Zihuatanejo has been touted for decades as part of the "Triangulo del Sol", something we never asked for and frankly want no part of, and as we've witnessed and always knew, Acapulco is where most of the attention goes, including federal and state budgets, because so many politicians and their supporting "influyentes" have economic interests there. A local community tourism office funded by local hotels and tourism-dependent services should be able to promote the local region more adequately and efficiently.