MSNBC has recently published an article called Time to Say Adios to Mexico? containing wildly misleading statements about safety in Mexico and insinuating that Americans have collectively decided to stop visiting Mexico altogether.
The article begins by stating that 34,000 people have died because of the drug war, yet it does not point out that that virtually all of the drug related violence has taken place in only a few specific boarder towns or that tourists and innocent bystanders have not and are not being targeted. The article makes no effort to contextualize these numbers with US murder figures as they would have had to acknowledge that Mexico has a murder rate of about 9.8 per every 100,000 people, which is actually less than that of US cities like Phoenix (12.6), Houston (12.5), and Los Angeles (17.1) (source).
The article then insinuates that tourism to Mexico is declining, when US investments in Mexico, US flights to Mexico, and the numbers themselves show otherwise. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the number of foreign tourist arrivals to Mexico in 2010 was 22.4 million – a 7% increase from 2009 and 2% more than in 2008, which was one of Mexico’s best years in history.
The US has been catching heat from international critics since they increased the State Departments Mexico travel warning with broad, misleading statements that don’t accurately specify the specific regions of danger. There’s been much speculation as to why the US media has been so relentless about publishing negative press related to Mexico, but one thing is certain – they’re not playing fair and it’s influencing a whole lot of Americans. In this recent post from MSNBC, they’ve included a poll asking “Would you visit Mexico given the worsening violence in some areas?” As of the time I am writing this post, 76% of the 20233 who have voted answered No.
If you’ve been to Mexico and can attest to its safety (like these recent travel experts) or if your just a fan of responsible reporting in general, please click here and vote “Yes” (the poll is below the picture to the right of the text) to show Americans that not everything is as your TV would lead you to believe.
