Congress on Tourism Competitiveness Ends Well in Mexico

Mexico’s National Tourism Entrepreneurial Council (CNET) held its sixth congress last week. Attendants discussed hot topics on travel industry competitiveness, the going of regional tourism, fiscal matters linked to it and the advance of sustainable tourism.

CNET Chief Gordon Viberg explained the event sought to find ways of improving Mexico’s leisure industry as far as infrastructure, judicial matters and promotional aspects are concerned.

Mr. Viberg denied the Council is single-handedly fostering confrontation between the public and private sectors, but rather advancing its own agenda in a decisive manner based on a spirit of collaboration, mutual respect and open-mindedness.

CNET controls 95 percent of Mexico’s private-run tourist sector with over 200,000 small, midsize and big companies, and a payroll of more than 1.2 million employees in all.

In a master lecture dictated in front of a 200-people audience during the conclave, Bank of Mexico’s Chief Guillermo Ortiz reminded attendants that revenues churned out by local tourism has jumped from $5.6 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in the first ten months of the ongoing year.

These figures do not include the money spent by borderline visitors, nor the gains raked in by the cruise industry. However, Mr. Viberg concluded that tourism’s contribution to Mexico’s GDP is far less than in other destinations in the region.