The minister of tourism says a criminal complaint has been lodged against whoever was responsible for the suspension of the VisitMéxico website and changes to the English-language spelling of some destinations.

Miguel Torruco characterized the actions as an intentional attempt to damage the image of the travel website and the Ministry of Tourism.

The website became inaccessible nearly three weeks ago and a message on the home page indicated that the site had been suspended for lack of payment.

The site was reactivated last week but it became evident soon after that spelling changes had been made to the English version. Guerrero became Warrior, Tulum became Jumpsuit and Hidalgo became Noble, among other mistranslations.

The ministry was widely condemned for the errors but one business leader said those responsible wanted to damage the work of the minister. Armando Bojórquez, head of the tourism commission at the national business organization Concanaco-Servytur, regretted the actions and described Torruco as a man who had dedicated his life to the tourism sector.

He also said no one wished to speak out about the reasons for the problems with the website, which appear to have been triggered by a dispute between the site’s provider, a company called Braintivity, and Tecnocen, a firm that had been responsible for registering and maintaining the domain name visitmexico.com, among others.

VisitMéxico was shut down again after the translation errors were discovered. The home page now carries a message saying a new site will be launched August 20.

Source: El Universal (sp)