Mexico´s leisure sector swung for the fences in January and came out with a tape-measuring dinger as it raked in more than $1 billion worth of revenues, up a blistering 15.4 percent from January 2004, the country´s Tourism Department informed this week in a press release. The Aztec nation welcomed 1.8 million tourists in January, up 10.1 percent from that same month a year ago. Out of that total, little more than one million visitors came from other parts of the country, while the remaining 728,000 sunbathers hailed from across the border.

Spain-based NH Hotels is planing to pour some $400 million into the Dominican Republic´s travel industry over the next seven years to build a fancy resort, a golf course and several real estate projects, according to Victor Cabral, president of Cap Cana, a Dominican tourist group. Mr. Cabral said the Spanish company will buy one of the most exclusive tourist offers in the Caribbean country -currently owned by the Cap Cana group- for $120 million. The one-million-square-meter vacant lot is located in Bavaro, in the easternmost province of Altagracia.

The Dominican government warned that plummeting tourist arrivals from the United States and Canada, coupled with outbreaks of infectious diseases in some areas, have already cost the Caribbean nation some $300 million so far this year. In early February, Dominican President Leonel Fernandez ordered the creation of a healthcare institution for tourists visiting the nation in an effort to stave off the outbreaks of infectious ailments that hit the east and north of the country.

A grand total of 260,000 visitors with $147 million in their pockets are expected to come to Cancun during the oncoming Holy Week festivities, pushing up hotel occupancy to 95 percent during that brief span of time, local hoteliers believe. As we speak, hotel occupancy is in the neighborhood of 85 percent, with as many as 49,000 tourists staying in 23,000 hotel rooms. However, tourism officials in Cancun are confident the week ending on March 27 could bring much higher rates.

Real estate investments linked to Chile´s tourist sector will climb to little more than $2 billion in the first quarter of the ongoing year, the Higher Tourism Council of the nation´s Chamber of Commerce (CONSETUR) informed this week. That investment package comprises a 5.2 percent spike from the last quarter of 2004 when that figures peaked $927.3 million. This year´s projected investment is 13.4 percent higher than the cash flow anted up in 2003.

Americans will take a record number of trips this spring, according to a new report by the Travel Industry Association (TIA), even though the overall increase in trips is expected to be only slightly higher than that of spring 2004. TIA is estimating Americans will take 281 million person-trips of 50 miles or more one-way from home during the months of March, April and May. That represents a 1.2% increase from last spring when travelers took a record 277.5 million trips.