The hotel company Grupo Posadas has announced that it will invest 450 million pesos (US $23.3 million) to build a 25-story, 170-room Fiesta Americana hotel in Mazatlán, Sinaloa.
“We like to grow because we support Mexico,” Grupo Posadas managing director José Carlos Azcárraga said at an event on Thursday.
“Tourism is an industry that has many benefits and the most important one is the creation of jobs. In the particular case of this hotel, 800 direct and indirect jobs will be created,” he said. Azcárraga didn’t specify when the project is expected to start or finish.
Sinaloa Economy Secretary Javier Lizárraga Mercado applauded Grupo Posadas’ decision and said the state government will continue to work to attract more tourism investment.
“In Sinaloa this year, we will exceed four million tourists, in Mazatlán it will be three million. The port represents 70% of tourism,” he said.
Lizárraga said that among the visitors to Mazatlán this year were more than 300,000 cruise ship passengers. The goal, he added, is to reach half a million.
“We’re prepared to receive more tourists and we have greater air connectivity. Tourism now represents 7% of GDP in Sinaloa,” Lizárraga said.
The secretary also said that the number of hotel rooms in the Pacific coast resort city has increased to more than 13,000 from 9,500 at the end of 2016 and that 5,000 more are planned.
“That speaks of the dynamism of Sinaloa and Mazatlán,” Lizárraga said.
The Mexico City government has launched an English-language tourism website to promote the capital and provide information to foreign visitors.
TheCity.mx, which dubs itself as “The Essential Guide to Everything Mexico City,” features information about different neighborhoods, food (including the ubiquitous street stands), the public transit system, tourist attractions (including lesser known ones) and the history of the capital.
It also offers a range of advice, including the best times of the year to visit Mexico City and tips related to social etiquette and manners (learning at least a little bit of Spanish is a good start).
In addition, it lists emergency numbers, contact details for embassies, hotels, museums, tour options and Mexico City festivals and events, among other information.
Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum told a press conference this week that the new website will “enrich” the experience of English-speaking visitors to Mexico City.
She said that tourists are always looking for a space where all the information about a particular destination is compiled and TheCity.mx meets that need for Mexico City.
Sheinbaum said that international visitor numbers to the capital have increased 17.5% this year compared to 2018 and predicted that the government’s promotion efforts will result in higher numbers in 2020. The mayor added that Mexico City’s tourism police will increase their patrols to provide greater security to visitors.
For his part, the head of the government’s Digital Agency for Public Innovation, which developed the new website in conjunction with the secretariats of Culture and Tourism, said that a chatbot will be activated on TheCity.mx in January to respond to visitors’ questions.
José Merino said the bot will also be accessible via the messaging service WhatsApp.
He added that the tourism website will also promote the capital in English-language posts on social media sites Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as part of a campaign called TheCity.mx Newer, Older, Deeper.
Just over a quarter of all international tourists who come to Mexico visit or pass through Mexico City and 44.6% come from countries where the official language is English, Merino said.
Police in Tlaquepaque are among those preparing for the holidays.
Municipalities in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara have joined forces with state and federal authorities to strengthen security in the Jalisco capital for the end-of-year vacation period.
A security operation in which municipal and state police are collaborating with the National Guard began on Thursday and will conclude on January 6. It aims to guarantee security for citizens in the metropolitan area’s shopping, dining and tourist precincts.
“This model is inter-institutional so that all Jalisco residents have a peaceful and calm end to the year without being victims of crime,” state security cabinet chief Macedonio Tamez said on Thursday.
“With this [operation] the municipal, state and federal governments are protecting the city . . .” he added.
One of the municipalities that will see a bolstered security force presence is Zapopan, which borders Guadalajara to the west and north.
An inter-institutional force of 181 members will patrol popular shopping areas in Zapopan such as the Andares mall and surrounding area.
“What we want is to avoid any criminal act,” said Zapopan Mayor Pablo Lemus Navarro.
“That could range from robbery of bank account holders [after withdrawing cash] to theft of a watch. We want to avoid any act of insecurity in the area.”
In Tlaquepaque, which borders Guadalajara to the south, the security operation will cover all 42 neighborhoods that are part of the Magical Town designation. Mayor María Elena Limón said the operation will benefit 280,000 people who are expected to visit the municipality during the vacation period.
The joint security operation is similar to that implemented in Guadalajara during the Buen Fin shopping event last month, the newspaper El Economista said. Shoppers in the Jalisco capital didn’t report any crime problems during the four-day event that concluded November 18.
Five California sea lions were rescued from fishing nets in the Gulf of California off the coast of Sonora.
The liberation of the three pups under a year old and an adult male and adult female was the result of a campaign to disentangle the mammals from fishing nets on Isla San Jorge, off the coast of Sonora.
The campaign began with a theoretical training course led by the Marine Mammal Center (TMMC) in Sausalito, California, in coordination with various Mexican conservation organizations.
Conanp explained in a press release that the nets used in the Gulf of California use buoys and weights to keep them spread vertically in the water, some as long as 800 meters.
Once set, they move with the currents to capture various species, some of which have difficulty getting free. Sea lions are among the marine mammals that die in the nets.
The California sea lion is protected as an at-risk species under a 2010 environmental protection law.
The rescue was carried out by agents from the Natural Protected Areas Commission (Conanp) and the environmental protection agency Profepa in coordination with personnel from the Islas del Golfo de California protected area and the navy.
Motorists caught driving under the influence in Cancún will no longer be automatically sent to the local jail, known as “El Torito” (The Little Bull).
Drivers now have the option to pay a fine of 8,000-12,000 pesos (US $411-617), and the amount of the fine can depend on how much the driver has had to drink.
Those with a blood-alcohol content (BAC) of 0.041 to 0.08, measured with a roadside breath test, will be fined as much as 10,138 pesos (US $521), and those with a BAC over 0.08 will be fined as much as 12,673 pesos (US $651).
The fines will be as much as double in repeat instances of impaired driving, and the driver’s license will be suspended for six to 12 months.
The initiative provides an option of jail time no longer than 36 hours or community service if the driver is unable to pay the fine.
In all cases, the automobile will be impounded until the driver has completed the applicable sanctions.
Delivery and transit drivers will lose their licenses if they have any quantity of drugs or alcohol in the blood.
The Cancún municipal council also approved a measure to install video cameras at impaired driving checkpoints to ensure that the program is functioning properly or, in other words, that there is no corruption in the process, explained Mayor María Elena Lezama Espinosa.
The announcement of the initiative came after a busy weekend at El Torito. Cancún booked 105 people into the cells for impaired driving from November 29-December 1.
The national BAC limit for driving a vehicle is 0.08, though some states have limits as low as 0.04. Federal law allows police to imprison an impaired driver for 20-36 hours for the offense.
People caught driving impaired more than twice in one year, or more than three times in three or more, have their license revoked.
There are two places in Mexico that are year-round Christmas towns and for good reason: their economies are based on the production of Christmas ornaments.
One is Tlalpujahua, Michoacán, a town that faced severe economic depression after the last mines closed in the area in the 1930s.
Some 20 years later, Joaquín Muñoz decided to leave Tlapujahua and migrate to the United States. He wound up in Chicago, working at a factory making artificial Christmas trees. He also learned about blown glass tree ornaments, neither of which was known in Mexico at the time.
In the 1960s, he returned to Mexico but there was still no work in Tlalpujahua so he went to Mexico City where he set up a workshop making artificial trees. The business went well enough but it began to take off when Muñoz added glass ornaments, which proved more popular than the trees themselves.
Muñoz returned to his hometown and moved his operations there, establishing Adornos Navideños, the largest business in town.
Christmas ornaments on display in Tlalpujahua.
The glassblowing and painting techniques quickly spread among local families and today most of the population is involved in the making and selling of Christmas ornaments in some way. It is the main economic lifeline of the municipality, which exports ornaments and other decorations to the United States and other parts of the world.
It has also taken advantage of its location only three hours west of Mexico City to make itself a weekend tourist destination, billing itself as the “eternal Christmas town.” The year-round Christmas feel comes not only from ornaments for sale throughout the year, but also because of the area’s pine-covered mountains.
Even the town’s wooden houses with their tin roofs lend the right feel. The success of this promotion is due in no small part because it takes advantage of the monarch butterfly’s winter hibernation in the same region.
Each year Tlalpujahua hosts the Feria de la Esfera, or Ornaments Fair, which this year runs until December 15.The event brings thousands of visitors during the months before Christmas and the town can be packed on weekends. Booths are set up all over town, but the center of it all is the auditorium, where the widest variety of products can be found.
Most of the ornaments made here are still blown and painted by hand, and the fair offers demonstrations of the process. Some even allow visitors to participate in the making of their own ornaments.
But there is more to see than just ornaments in this Pueblo Mágico (Magical Town) of cobblestone streets, such as old mines offering tours and a colonial church.
Chignahuapan, Puebla, holds a Christmas tree and ornament fair every year.
One caveat, however. Along with the northern-like scenery, there are also northern-like winter conditions. Daytime temperatures can be comfortable (or not) but nights here can be cold.
Mexico’s other Christmas town is on the opposite side of Mexico City, three hours northeast in Pueblas Sierra Norte. Ornament making started in Chignahuapan about 30 years ago by a man named Rafael Méndez Núñez.
It is double the size of Tlalpujahua, but like its Michoacán neighbors, its economy is dominated by the making of blown glass ornaments for export. There are over 200 producers here, with the largest being El Castillo de la Esfera. Founded in 1993, it claims to be the largest producer in Mexico.
Chignahuapan earned its Pueblo Mágico status in 2012 but has a very different feel. The town plaza is dominated by a highly unusual and colorful kiosk of Moorish design. Just off the plaza is a church with the largest image of the Virgin Mary in the world at 12 meters high.
The climate is very rainy and somewhat chilly, but it does not get anywhere near as cold as the Michoacán mountains. The town is surrounded by fruit and coffee trees, along with waterfalls and hot springs for relaxation.
Chignahuapan also holds an annual fair to celebrate Christmas trees and ornaments but it ends in early November. But this does not mean that the town is out of ornaments afterwards. Visitors and vendors continue to crowd its streets through the month of December.
Painting ornaments in Chignahuapan.
The bread and butter of both towns is the making of ornaments for export, and for that reason most of those sold here will be very nostalgic to people from north of the border. However, in its short history there has already been experimentation not only to create products different from those in the U.S. or those made in China.
There is also a subtle but noticeable difference between the ornaments and other decorations made in the two towns. Most of this focuses on the making and painting of blown glass. All kinds of motifs can be found on the spheres, even those related to Day of the Dead in Chignahuapan.
Both are working to make other blown shapes, such as stylized poinsettias and some not related to Christmas at all, such as artificial fruits (to make fruit bowls and other arrangements) and hot air balloon decorations. Both have also worked to create new ways to display ornaments, from mini-trees made of wire or wood to showcase one or a group of ornaments, to very interesting versions of Christmas wreaths made from willow branches, bamboo strips, wire, colored corn husks and more, decorated with ribbons and, of course, glass ornaments.
The police chief of Cuernavaca, Morelos, was murdered by gunmen on Thursday night.
Juan David Juárez López, 49, was eating at a taco restaurant in the state’s capital when he was shot six times. Paramedics who arrived on the scene were unable to revive him.
The neighborhood in which the murder occurred was later patrolled by National Guard and army troops to calm frightened residents. The situation became more tense when the security forces blocked reporters from filming near the scene of the crime.
Juárez was appointed police chief by Cuernavaca Mayor Francisco Antonio Villalobos Adán on October 19, at a challenging — and dangerous — time for security forces in the state.
This year is turning out to be the most violent in its history. At least 14 state and municipal police officers have been murdered so far this year.
According to the National Public Security System, there were 873 intentional homicides in Morelos in the first nine months, up from 729 in the same period last year.
March was the most violent month in the period, with 114 homicides, followed by February with 109 and June and September with 100 each.
Toyota will begin production at a new plant in Guanajuato in the coming days as industry-wide automotive production continues to fall.
The Mexican subsidiary of the Japanese automaker plans to manufacture 100,000 Tacoma pickup trucks annually at its US $700-million plant in Apaseo el Grande, a municipality that borders Querétaro. Most of the vehicles will be exported to the United States.
Toyota Motor Sales Mexico president Tom Sullivan told reporters Thursday that 2020 is expected to be another difficult year for the domestic automotive industry. Car sales in Mexico have been on the wane for the past two and a half years.
Toyota is the fourth most successful automaker in the domestic new car sales market with a share of 7.9%. However, its sales in Mexico between January and November fell to 94,342 vehicles, a 2% decline compared to the same period last year.
The national statistics agency, Inegi, reported on Friday that 300,292 vehicles were made in Mexico last month, a 13% decline compared to November 2018. The production downturn is the largest for the month of November in 16 years.
The production of eight of 12 automakers that operate in Mexico fell last month.
The biggest decline was at Ford, whose output shrank by 68.2% compared to November 2018. Audi recorded a 27.6% production decline, Volkswagen’s output fell 23% and KIA manufactured 19.5% fewer vehicles.
The only manufacturers that made more vehicles last month compared to November 2018 were Mazda, General Motors and JAC, whose production increased by 10.5%, 9.1% and 7.7% respectively. BMW was the fourth carmaker that didn’t record an annual production decline. However, the German company wasn’t operating in Mexico in November 2018.
Lower automotive production last month had a knock-on effect on exports, which declined 7.5% compared to November 2018 to 268,296 vehicles.
Just under 85% of that number – 227,684 vehicles – went to the United States. The number of cars sent to Mexico’s northern neighbor was 0.4% lower than in November 2018.
During the first 11 months of the year, just over 3.54 million vehicles were made in Mexico, a 3.5% decline compared to the same period last year, while exports fell 2.2% to just over 3.1 million.
Major Mexican newspapers published an alarming story on Monday: they reported that December 1, the first anniversary of President López Obrador’s presidency, was the most violent day to date of his six-year term with 127 homicides.
But it was in fact a bit of “fake news” of the government’s own making.
Security analyst Alejandro Hope noted in his column in the newspaper El Universal that the source for the story was the government’s own figures. He also noted that the figures were “obviously wrong.”
However, he pointed out that media reports indicated that 14 of the victims were killed on Saturday and therefore their deaths should have been included in homicide statistics for November 30 rather than December 1.
But they weren’t, Hope said: only three murders in Coahuila were included in Saturday’s statistics.
The analyst said the director of the National Information Center, David Pérez Esparza, explained to him that daily homicide statistics are indicative of the day on which a murder investigation is opened rather than the day on which the crime occurred.
A murder investigation might be opened one day or even several days after a homicide occurs, Hope wrote.
On the plus side, the government’s methodology ensures that only official information contributes to the statistics and not rumors, he said.
“However, it also generates serious difficulties. In the first place, by following the [daily government homicide] reports, it’s never possible to know with precision how many people were murdered on a specific day,” Hope wrote. “A day that appears calm might have been unusually bloody. Or vice versa.”
The analyst said that f0r President López Obrador and his security team, the discrepancy is not a trivial one.
The daily murder count, Hope wrote, is supposed to be used as a tool to determine where the nation’s security forces are most needed.
Hope said the discrepancies generate “monumental confusion” in both the media and the general population.
He said that if the 14 deaths on Saturday are subtracted from Sunday’s figures, “we’re left with a total of 113” murders, “an undoubtedly high figure but not the highest” since López Obrador took office (there have been several days with between 114 and 117 homicide victims).
However, Hope noted that it wasn’t known how many of those 113 homicides actually occurred on Sunday because, as Pérez explained, the figure refers to the opening of murder investigations.
In light of the confusion, the analyst made a two-point proposal: “1) Suspend the daily count: it doesn’t help to improve decision making and confuses public opinion. 2) If the aforementioned isn’t possible because the president wants to have that data, cancel the publication of the daily report and replace it with a weekly statistical report compiled with consolidated figures. If it is explained well, no one will complain about a decision of that nature.”
In the northern industrial town of Torreón, Coahuila, one organization is working to make a difference in the lives of marginalized children and adults, contributing to their personal development — and keeping them off the streets — with music.
And what began as a simple choir has grown into orchestras.
Founded in 2011 by artistic director Miguel Ángel García, DIME (comprehensive youth development) helps children and teens from poor communities develop physically, socially and psychologically through music.
The original idea was to create a children’s choir in Ejido Allende, one of thousands of farm communities with few economic opportunities.
While working with the choir, the idea emerged to add instruments. They began with seven violins, found the money to buy seven more and later bought cellos. This became much more popular than the choir idea, which eventually gave way to orchestras.
A young violinist performs during a DIME concert.
As the program grew, one challenge became finding more music teachers willing to work with students from poor and troubled homes. This not only required technical skills but also a special kind of personality. At first there was high turnover, but today the situation has stabilized to 15 teachers working with 670 children between the ages of 6 and 15.
They belong to three fully-formed orchestras, as well as a fourth in development, operating in six ejidos, along with a children’s home, the municipality of Chavez and the Carolinas neighborhood in Torreón.
Eight of the 15 teachers are former child participants who can demonstrate the importance the program has had on their lives. About 30 students so far have earned music scholarships from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Torreón, as well as from the Rotary Club.
DIME’s success has prompted it to work with another vulnerable population – prison inmates. It has partnered with the state’s Center for Social Rehabilitation, an adult facility with a number of highly dangerous individuals, but one with programs and services not available in other parts of the country.
While still in the development stage, it is DIME’s most ambitious project by far, soliciting interest from over half the prison’s inmates. About 100-115 will be selected to participate, based on interest, talent and behavior. The main goal of the program is to foster self-esteem and a sense of community among inmates and is believed to be the first attempt at something like it in Mexico.
The program is soliciting donations of musical instruments such as those that are sitting unused in people’s homes.
