ifeelfine makes an excellent point regarding the statistic that 2.1 of every 100,000 Americans that

To be clear, violence in Mexico is no joke. There have been over 47,000 drug-related murders alone in the past five years. Its murder rate 18 per 100,000 according to this United Nations Office on Drugs Crime report is more than three times the US rate of 4.8 per 100,000. Though Mexican tourism newport beach dinner cruise is starting to bounce back, Americans appear more reluctant to return than Canadians and Brits (5.7 million Americans newport beach dinner cruise visited in 2011, down 3% from 2010 and, according to Expedia, more than four of five bookings were adults going without children). Many who don t go cite violence as the reason.
What you don t get from most reports in the US is statistical evidence that Americans newport beach dinner cruise are less likely newport beach dinner cruise to face violence on average in Mexico than at home, particularly when you zero in on Mexico s most popular travel destinations. For example, the gateway to Disney World, Orlando , saw 7.5 murders per 100,000 residents in 2010 per the FBI; this is higher newport beach dinner cruise than Cancun newport beach dinner cruise or Puerto Vallarta, with rates of 1.83 and 5.9 respectively, per a Stanford University report (see data visualization here , summarized on this chart, page 21 ). Yet in March, the Texas Department of Public Safety advised against spring break travel anywhere in Mexico, a country the size of the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy combined. Never mind that popular destinations like the Bahamas, Belize and Jamaica have far higher homicide rates (36, 42 and 52 per 100,000). Why the singular focus?
According to FBI crime statistics, 4.8 Americans per 100,000 were murdered in the US in 2010 . The US State Department reports that 120 Americans of the 5.7 million who visited Mexico last year were murdered , which is a rate of 2.1 of 100,000 visitors. Regardless newport beach dinner cruise of whether they were or weren t connected to drug trafficking, which is often not clear, it s less than half the US national rate.
Looking at the numbers, it might be wise for Texans to ignore their Public Safety department s advice against Mexico travel. Five per 100,000 Texans were homicide newport beach dinner cruise victims in 2010, per the FBI. Houston was worse , with 143 murders, or a rate of 6.8 over three times the rate for Americans in Mexico.
It s interesting comparing each of the countries most dangerous cities. New Orleans, host city of next year s Super Bowl, broke its own tourism record last year with 8 million visitors. Yet the Big Easy has ten times the US homicide rate, close to triple Mexico s national newport beach dinner cruise rate.
Few go to Ciudad Juarez, a border town of 1.3 million that saw 8 to 11 murders a day in 2010 (accounts differ CNN went with 8 ). It s unlikely to ever be a tourism hostpot, but things have been quietly improving there. By 2011, CNN reported, the homicide rate dropped by 45%, and the first six weeks of this year saw an additional 57% drop, per this BBC story .
If that trend in Juarez continues all year, and it might not, the number of homicides would have dropped from over 3000 in 2010 to 710 in 2012. Meanwhile New Orleans homicide rate is increasing, up to 199 murders last year, equivalent to 736 in a city with the population of Juarez.
The best of Mexico, in terms of travel, isn t on the warning. The US warns against non-essential travel to just four of Mexico s 31 states (all in the north: Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango and Tamaulipas). The warning goes on to recommend against travel to select parts of other states, newport beach dinner cruise but not including many popular destinations such as Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, the Riviera Nayarit, Cancun, Cozumel and Tulum.
Of all people, President Obama and first lady said OK to their 13-year-old daughter s spring break destination this year: Oaxaca . Then Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum made snide remarks over that, perhaps overlooking that Oaxaca state has a smaller body count from the drug war than his home state s murder rate (Oaxaca s 4.39 per 100,000 to Pennsylvania s 5.2 ).
Oaxaca state, not on the US travel warning, is famed for its colonial city, Zapotec ruins and emerging beach destinations like Huatulco . Lonely Planet author Greg Benchwick even tried grasshoppers with the local mezcal (Malia apparently newport beach dinner cruise stuck with vanilla shakes.)
Yes. As the US State Department says, millions of US citizens safely visit Mexico each year. Last year, when I took on the subject for CNN , one commenter suggested Lonely newport beach dinner cruise Planet was being paid to promote travel there. No we weren t. We took on the subject simply because newport beach dinner cruise as travelers so often know there is another story beyond the perception back home, be it Vietnam welcoming Americans in the 90s or Colombia s dramatic safety improvements in the 00s. And, equally as importantly, Mexico makes for some of the world s greatest travel experiences it s honestly why I m in this line of work.
Curious newport beach dinner cruise stat: There are 16 baseball teams in Mexico all of which have Facebook newport beach dinner cruise pages. There are 32 states in Mexico (including Mexico City not technically a state but let s throw it in) and of these entities only 6 or so have real Facebook pages (not the profiles which have confused so many tourism officials). The model of tourism information distribution is woefully obsolete. Mexican baseball league insisted that all of the teams become social media-savvy. And tourism? Not so much
it makes me crazy I go several times a year and come back alive, and yet people still make nasty comments every time I go to Mexico. As I always say unless you plan to join the cartel or become a high ranking member of the Mexican military or police force between now and your vacation.
These are ignorant people who dont travel, or go to Aruba every year to a timeshare and Im known as a world traveler. Wouldnt they acknowledge maybe I know something they dont? Fine go to Aruba and leave Mexico to us.
That is a curious stat about Facebook, but who uses Facebook for destination research? newport beach dinner cruise I recently met the Mexican Tourism Board s publicist at the NY Times Travel Show and told her she should be more active on the travel forums dispelling the myths about Mexico.
Thanks for a great fact-based perspective on the realities of travel risks. This is a topic that definitely warrants further examination. As a traveler, my main safety newport beach dinner cruise concern is not homicide. I suspect far more travelers experiences are tainted by lesser (but still significant) criminal activity such as assaults of all types, thefts, pickpocketing, shakedowns, or being taken advantage of by the odd unscrupulous merchant (also known as gringo pricing).
newport beach dinner cruise When in a foreign country, I am aware that I am less attuned to the nuances of social or business interactions, developing public events, and so on. At home, I have a pretty good sense of which dark street should be avoided, which bank machines are okay to use at night, or when a situation outside a bar is about to get nasty. These are more difficult to assess when one is less familiar with the language, culture, nonverbal clues and laws of a foreign land. Does this mean we should avoid going to new places? Well, isn t that the reason we travel? It just means using common sense and perhaps being a little newport beach dinner cruise more cautious than at home (something which the all-inclusive booze-cruise crowds sometimes forget, newport beach dinner cruise occasionally at their own risk of becoming a statistic).
However, despite the excellent article, there is a long ways to go to counter the negative views of Mexico. The pervasive negative influence newport beach dinner cruise of slick news-as-entertainment media is hard to overcome. And your analysis also demands of the reader some basic numeracy and critical thinking, which the heck no, I m not gonna go to Mexico crowd may not have. But you have to start somewhere! At least, you have reassured some travelers, and given others some good material to rebut the inevitable questions about safety in Mexico.
But can you clarify one point where the perspective looks skewed to me. That s when you talk about a murder rate of 2.1 per 100,000 Americans visiting Mexico vs. 4.8 per 100,000 for Americans at home.
It appears that the 4.8 is the murder rate for 52 weeks in the U.S., but the 2.1 rate is for maybe one week whatever the average stay is in Mexico. That would come to an annualized rate of more than 100 murders per 100,000 American visitors. Not so comforting.
^ Exactly. I agree that the risks in Mexico are overblown, especially in areas away from the border. But your statistics are misleading, obviously an American is less likely to be murdered in Mexico if they only spend a vacation there versus the place they live every day. You have to adjust for time.
The meme that it is extremely dangerous in Mexico isn t so much a travel warning as it is racism. newport beach dinner cruise I note that it s Republican-controlled Texas that is telling it s citizens to not go to Mexico. This, of course plays into the whole illegal alien as well as the reconquista themes that permeate political rhetoric from the right in the US.
If we can all think of Mexicans (and all persons who originate from south of the US border are seen as and treated as Mexicans by those who share this racist mindset) as dangerous automatic rifle-toting, drug-running banditos, we can keep the xenophobic racism current going. That way, there s always someone newport beach dinner cruise else to blame for underfunded public schools and services.
I live in Mazatlan 6 months per year. Never have I felt in danger, until this year. I was robbed 3 times, once at gun point. This could happen in any large city in the U.S. It WILL NOT keep me from going back. I hope they get control of the petty banditos. The drug cartels have nothing to do with petty theft. They are Mexicans killing corrupt police or other cartels that get into their drug operations.
ifeelfine makes an excellent point regarding the statistic that 2.1 of every 100,000 Americans that visited Mexico last year died. It would serve us better newport beach dinner cruise to compare that number with, say, the number of Americans who die while visiting other countries, like England or France. Or the number of foreign visitors who died while visiting the U.S. I hope the author responds to the questi