TIJUANA.- Throughout the last couple of months (July and August), tourism in Baja has increased in a very good way, said Baja Secretary of Tourism, Oscar Escobedo Carignan

Escobedo also mentioned that there was a 19% increase in border crossings, of which 13% were Anglo-Saxons and that these numbers are a reflection of the success several campaigns have had to improve the state´s image. The influx percentages in Baja have favored most of its cities, Tecate had a 50% increase in comparison to last year, Tijuana 34%, Rosarito 25%, San Felipe 17%, Mexicali 5% as well as Ensenada. He acknowledged that Ensenada didn´t have that much increase due to the lack of hotels.

"Ensenada's growth is very limited given that they have few hotel rooms...When Placido Domingo was in town for a concert, this became a problem given that we would have had more people if we had more rooms."

President of COTUCO Rosarito, Manuel Padres Perez-Verdia said he was happy of how 2015 is turning out due to the fact that tourist increase has been noticeable, specially with Anglo-Saxon visitors. The January-August period has had an increase of 20% which is equal to 13,289 more hotel rooms than 2014.

He added that this influx in the city has helped to employee more staff and they are currently with no problems whatsoever. He expects that during this Labor Day weekend, the city reaches an influx of 90%.

Hector Rosas Rodea, delegate of SECTURE Ensenada gave good news regarding the coastal city, assuring that since the beginning of 2015, tourists have given a positive response, specially through out the summer which ended the season with over 60% of hotel vacancies. Regarding Labor Day, he mentioned that they expect an influx of 85% throughout the three days.

Escobedo Carignan added that part of the obtained success is due to the 52 familiarization trips they had, of which 27 where national and international and 25 were local. He also mentioned that during this month, magazines such as Forbes, Animal Gourmet, Gourmet Magazine, Quien, British Airways, Russia's National Geographic and GQ France will publish positive articles of Baja, promoting the state's name worldwide creating confidence among tourist to visit it.

Regarding the new pedestrians boardwalk from San Ysidro to Tijuana, Escobedo confirmed that this has caused certain discomfort among some tourist who visit Mexico, mentioning some cases where several tourists where charged with a permit fee even if they were just visiting for one day. He explained that these type of cases and waiting up to an hour to cross over are some factors that could affect tourism in the future and that before the weekend comes around he will have the appropriate meeting to propose a solution to said cases, and avoid this happening in the future.

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