Fidetur Presents Cost Accounting, Without Benefits

(Acapulco, El Sur 17 March) The Trust for the Promotion of Acapulco Tourism (Fidetur) presented an accounting of its activities and expenditures for the current six-year mandate. Personnel have made 125 international trips, 246 trips within Mexico, and have spent $206.8 million pesos on radio, TV and print promotion. The report is very detailed on all aspects of the expenditures. On the other hand, the report omits any mention of benefits or achievements derived from these expenditures. Critics of public-sponsored promotion are thus able to complain that the money for travel and promotion is being wasted by the bureaucracy. One of the founding premises of Fidetur was to free up promotional efforts from the sclerosis of government paper-pushing, but, according to some, the tourism promotion trust is now struggling with the same problem.