Tourists walk on Marlyn beach in the Mexican Caribbean resort city of Cancun. EFE/File
Berlin, Mar 7 (EFE).- Mexican officials said at ITB Berlin, the world's largest tourism fair, that their strategy was to expand tourist markets and increase spending by visitors.
"We want to focus on getting the average spending by tourists coming from different international markets to be the highest possible," Mexican Tourism Marketing Council, or CPTM, director Rodolfo Lopez Negrete said.
The German market has a "very long" average stay of 19 nights and spending per stay of $2,160, excluding air fare, a figure that is nearly triple the $750 spent by a traditional tourist, Lopez Negrete said.
Mexico's strategy, moreover, calls for concentrating on just a few markets, especially the United States and Canada, and limited destinations, the tourism official said.
"The vast majority of the tourists welcomed by the country are concentrated in Mexico City, Cancun and Baja California Sur," Lopez Negrete said.
Mexico would also like to tap into more foreign markets outside the United States, the CPTM director said.
The goal is to reduce dependence on the North American market from 66 percent in 2007 to 55 percent in 2012 and 50 percent in coming years, the tourism official said.
Markets such as Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Peru grew during the same period, Lopez Negrete said.
"South America has had robust growth toward Mexico," the CPTM chief said.
Mexican officials are making an effort to keep tourists from becoming victims of violence, Lopez Negrete said.
"This is something that should never have happened, something we condemned strongly," the CPTM chief said in response to a question about the rapes last month of six Spanish tourists in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.
Several suspects have been arrested in connection with the rapes, which occurred on Feb. 4.
Mexico expects about 4 million visitors this year, Lopez Negrete said.
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