Acapulco Publicity Campaign Announced

(Acapulco, AN 26 April) When the US State Department recently renewed its travel advisory to Acapulco for US citizens, the State Secretary of Tourism, Graciela Báez Ricárdez, said the impact would be small. “It’s nothing new,” she said. But she did announce a new initiative to counteract the travel advisory and the image of violence perpetuated by the news media. In the Playa Suites Hotel yesterday she told reporters that it will not be “an emergency campaign,” since budget constraints prevent being able to reach the entire market. Instead, the initiative will be targeted to specific market segments. “As yet the cities or market niches have not been identified,” she said. This confirms beliefs in the private sector that all the talk from previous administrations about “target markets” was just puffing, and that in fact the money was not spent in a targeted way. The idea is to determine the markets in which travel to Acapulco is easiest and cheapest. She spoke of market niches several times without actually giving a definition or example.

Ms. Báez added that the best way to neutralize those State Department alerts and the bad press is with results, like that which came out of the first week of the Easter holidays, and also putting on events and activities with a publicity dividend, to give a good impression of Acapulco. “We need to generate positive reports,” she said. “And how do we do that? By letting people know about our high occupancy and the events we hold. That is the best way to counteract the negatives.”