The Mexico Tourism Board (MTB) has provided Travel Agent with more details on the upcoming divestment of the organization, including a number of closure dates for its offices abroad, as well as a five-point roadmap for how tourism will be handled on a national level going forward.
For the fiscal year of 2019, money that had been collected for the promotion of Mexico’s tourist destinations will be reoriented to other areas, an MTB spokesperson tells Travel Agent. The move involves an initiative to divest the MTB, with tourism promotions to be handled directly by the Ministry of Tourism. The exact timeline, however, will depend on how long it takes for the necessary legislation to go through the approval process.
The MTB was, however, able to provide dates on which the MTB’s offices abroad will be closed. Offices in Atlanta, Beijing, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Montreal, Paris, Rome, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington, DC, will all close February 28. The MTB’s offices in Tokyo, Berlin and New York will all close within the first four months of 2019, while the Miami office will close in May or June of 2019.
Following the end of the MTB, however, Mexico will continue with five major projects designed to help promote tourism to the country. These are the Mayan Train, which will connect Quintana Roo, Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco and Yucatan, as well as a “regionalization policy” that will aim to develop “anchor” products by state and destination across eight regions: Center, Center-North and West, Northwest, the Sea of Cortés, Gulf, North-Center, the Yucatan Peninsula and the Pacific. Mexico also plans to strengthen its internal market by reducing seasonality in low and medium seasons through two new programs, Disfruta México and Programa Sonrisas por México, as well as diversify its source markets through two other programs. Operation Toca Puertas will aim to position Mexico as a reference destination for international tourism in markets with high purchasing power, such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, United Arab Emirates, India, China, Korea, Japan and Russia, while the Reencounter my Roots program will focus on the U.S. and Canada. Finally, Mexico will focus on developing multi-sector and inter-institutional partnerships with state and municipal governments, as well as other agencies and entities.
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