Tourism Minister Miguel Torruco traveled to the United States this week to promote the Mexican tourism industry in the sector’s largest source market.

Accompanied by 10 state tourism ministers and executives of three Mexican airlines, Torruco spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Los Angeles, where he met tourism sector representatives, business leaders and investors.

At one event, the federal minister spoke about the Maya Train railroad project, the potential of the Islas Marías as a tourism destination and the development of the Huasteca Potosina region of San Luis Potosí, according to a report by the tourism news website Inversión Turística.

Among the attendees at the Así es México (This is Mexico) seminar were representatives of tourism associations, executives from airlines including Delta, American Airlines and United, travel agents and tour operators.

Torruco also met with California-based consul generals with whom he discussed ways to reactivate Mexico’s tourism sector, which had its worst year in living memory in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. The dinner at the official residence of Mexico’s consul general in Los Angeles was also attended by tourism sector entrepreneurs.

“The great connection with the state of California makes it the No. 1 market in the United States for travelers to Mexico,” Torruco said at the event.

The L.A. sojourn was the first of three visits the tourism minister will make to the United States as part of a tourism promotion strategy called operación toca puertas, or the knocking on doors operation.

Torruco will visit Chicago and New York during a four-day trip in October and Houston and San Antonio during a trip of the same length in November.

The company Global Publishing Strategies is organizing the trips at a cost of 4 million pesos (US $200,000) to the federal government. Before departing for Los Angeles, Torruco predicted that his visit would be “very productive.”

The Tourism Promotion Council was previously responsible for tourism promotion abroad, but it was disbanded by the current government.

Tourism contributes about 9% of Mexico’s GDP and directly employs more than 4 million Mexicans. Millions of United States citizens visit Mexico annually, bringing billions of dollars into the country.

With reports from El Economista and Inversión Turística