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makana.gabriel
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What is going on in Cabo??
The latest editorial in the Gringo Gazette paints a terrible picture of daily life in Cabo San Lucas faced by both business owners and visitors alike.
I tried to copy and post it but was unable to. Any input from those of you living at the bottom of the peninsula?
FAITH sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible!
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Gaucho
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| Quote: | Originally posted by makana.gabriel
The latest editorial in the Gringo Gazette paints a terrible picture of daily life in Cabo San Lucas faced by both business owners and visitors alike.
I tried to copy and post it but was unable to. Any input from those of you living at the bottom of the peninsula? |
I've read the editorial your writing about. Carrie is basically putting in writing what everybody else knows but is afraid to say. In my opinion it
makes perfect sense. Will her plan be implemented? Nope. But it's an interesting concept. She also has her own bar and restaurant in town so she's
hurtin' like every other business that relies on foreigners.
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Gaucho
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Here's the editorial:
Proposal To Reverse Los Cabos’ Decline In Tourism
Los Cabos is experiencing a loss of tourists because of the world economy, drug violence, and most of all the mistreatment of the tourists
The world economy is already improving, there is nothing we can do about the drug violence, but we can improve the shameful way we treat our tourists
Just a few years ago we could get away with treating our visitors harshly, the only people who heard about it were the friends and family of the
people who were mistreated. But nowadays all our bad deeds are exposed through the internet by angry people who feel wronged. Stories of how badly Los
Cabos treats their visitors are all over the internet.
Worse, almost everyone who is contemplating coming to Cabo looks at the internet for information when they’re thinking of coming here. Our reputation
scares them from even booking their trip. Waiters steal credit card numbers and buy merchandise on it before our tourists even get home. Waiters pad
bills. The waiters at Senor Frogs are actually picking pockets of cruise ship visitors. Dozens of times a day the police pull drivers over and
frighten them into giving them money. The federal police commonly work the highway to the airport, taking the passport from the visitor, and
threatening they will miss their plane if they do not give the police money. The tourist police can not be expected to police the police, they are on
the same team and have to get along with them.
The police in downtown Cabo San Lucas constantly prey on foreigners, picking them up late at night and threatening to plant drugs on them if they
don’t give them money. The city police also are known to force tourists to go to an ATM and draw out hundreds of dollars to give to them. Many of the
gas stations, especially those close to the airport, short change the tourists who drive rental cars. Many times doctors and clinics extort large
amounts of money from our visitors, and if they resist, the police are
hired by the hospitals to scare the money out of the foreigners. Many doctors will not sign the documents necessary by insurance companies to air
evacuate a foreigner out of the country until they are paid thousands of dollars in extortion. And where can these foreigners turn to? The law? The
law is the problem. One foreigner, a Realtor in Cabo San Lucas, went to the Ministerio Publico for help and the Ministerio Publico told him he could
make the problem would go away if he were given $40,000 pesos! Extortion by what we would call the district attorney’s office!
The government is the problem.
Therefore we can not look to government officials for the solution
The Solution
We who make our living off the foreign community must protect our income
by protecting our tourists. We need to organize volunteers to patrol the hot spots of trouble, and they should wear a distinctive purple shirt that
says tourist assistance on it. These volunteers will stand by any foreigner they see stopped by the police and assure
that they are treated fairly. They should also pop into the local hospitals several times a day and ask foreigners sitting in the waiting room if they
have any problems with the hospital admnstration. They should also stand watch around the malecon when the cruise ships are in port, and protect them
from pickpockets and thieves. The volunteers wearing the purple shirts can best be drawn from the hotels, restaurants, shops and sports activities
that are dependent on the tourists. Even the timeshare companies can pitch in employees. If each company volunteered the services of just two of their
English speaking employees once a week, we would have plenty of volunteers to cover San Jose and Cabo San Lucas. It is important that these volunteers
only work as vigilantes occasionally, so they don’t
go into cahoots with the police and become part of the problem. We need two volunteers in purple shirts to work the airport. One person to greet our
visitors as they come out of
immigration and customs and into the waiting room. Approach them with a smile and a flyer listing tips on what they should do if they encounter a
problem. There should be a phone number, (with dialing instructions), on that flyer, and we need to monitor that phone number with an English speaking
tourist advocate. The second airport volunteer should be in the area where tourists are waiting for their flight to leave. They should
pass out questionnaires titled, “How Did We Do?” which will pinpoint problem areas that we may not be patrolling and it will show how much we care
about our guests’ satisfaction and safety. Participating merchants can be given stickers for their windows, displaying the “Los Cabos Is Tourist
Friendly” logo, and enlisting those merchants into our program.
Use The Internet To Tell Everyone How We Have Changed
The second part of this plan is telling the world how much we care for our foreigners’ comfort and safety and that it is again safe to come to Los
Cabos. We need to tell them the extraordinary steps we’re taking for them. We launch an advertising campaign promoting our program and conveying our
slogan. Los Cabos is Tourist Friendly. If the Visitors Bureau or the Hotel Association or CANIRAC or even the federal tourist ministry has any money
to promote us, let’s try to break off from promoting the entire country, which the foreigners know has problems, and promote Los Cabos as an island of
tranquility and safety in Mexico.In addition to whatever money can be spent on this campaign of information in the U.S. and Canada, I suggest we fight
back on the internet. It’s been used against us, now let’s use it for us. For not much money we can hire a young fellow to spend several hours a day
writing blogs, working Facebook, Trip Adviser, and posting good news about Los Cabos, including pictures and stories about our vigilante program. If
we start this program right now we can turn our reputation from bad to good by the start of next season.
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BajaBruno
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Desperate times call for desperate measures. I certainly hope a baby has been born, for both the businesses and the visitors. It's good to see that
the former is finally seeing the value in the latter.
Christopher Bruno, Elk Grove, CA.
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JESSE
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Its simple folks, you want to ruin a tourist town, fill it with chilangos, a whole bunch of workers from the mainland, and trow in a bunch of money
hungry foreigners and you have the perfect recipe for destruction.
If they really want to help Cabo, they should pack their bags and move.
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cabobaja
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It is just not the chilango blue collar workers, it is the white collar doctors, lawyers, real estate agents and brokers, etc.
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bajabass
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Cabo used to be a convienent, quick flight away from the BS that is SoCal. Now it is just as bad as OC, if not worse. This has happened all over
Mexico. A beautiful place is discovered by the masses, then the madness begins. For me Cabo is no longer a destination. Anyone want to buy my
timeshare at Pueblo Bonita Rose? I'll be trading my weeks now. 
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mtgoat666
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Gaucho
Waiters steal credit card numbers and buy merchandise on it before our tourists even get home. Waiters pad bills. The waiters at Senor Frogs are
actually picking pockets of cruise ship visitors. Dozens of times a day the police pull drivers over and frighten them into giving them money. The
federal police commonly work the highway to the airport, taking the passport from the visitor, and threatening they will miss their plane if they do
not give the police money. The tourist police can not be expected to police the police, they are on the same team and have to get along with them.
The police in downtown Cabo San Lucas constantly prey on foreigners, picking them up late at night and threatening to plant drugs on them if they
don’t give them money. The city police also are known to force tourists to go to an ATM and draw out hundreds of dollars to give to them. Many of the
gas stations, especially those close to the airport, short change the tourists who drive rental cars. Many times doctors and clinics extort large
amounts of money from our visitors, and if they resist, the police are
hired by the hospitals to scare the money out of the foreigners. Many doctors will not sign the documents necessary by insurance companies to air
evacuate a foreigner out of the country until they are paid thousands of dollars in extortion. And where can these foreigners turn to? The law? The
law is the problem. One foreigner, a Realtor in Cabo San Lucas, went to the Ministerio Publico for help and the Ministerio Publico told him he could
make the problem would go away if he were given $40,000 pesos! Extortion by what we would call the district attorney’s office!
The government is the problem.
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is the problem as bad as portrayed in editorial?
the solution for locals may be to create a blacklist of all government officials and businesses that are preying on tourists.
the solution for tourists is to take your vacation elsewhere.
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Dave
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Poor Carrie
The girl just doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut.
Looks like she's gonna get kicked out of Mexico...
Again. 
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bajajazz
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If business is so poor, why is the Gringo Gazette regularly boasting about the increased number of pigeons being flown into SJD and posting
hard-to-believe estimates of the dollars spent by cruise ship tourists? I don't get it, there's a disconnect there somewhere.
Tourist traps -- and this includes Fisherman's Wharf in my once-beloved San Francisco -- always treat their customers like they're Kleenex . . . use
them once and throw them away.
My own sons will no longer fly into SJD when they visit because they invariably get effed when they rent a car. The final bill is usually about three
times what they were quoted.
Naive is not a word I'd ever use to describe Carrie Duncan, but I'm afraid she's deluding herself if she thinks there's anything we expatriates can do
to change the business culture in Mexico . . . or anywhere else, to be fair. The only thing sociopathic greedheads pay attention to is the bottom
line, and that goes for the scumbags on Wall Street as much as it does meseros in Cabo.
The one thing ordinary people can do is vote with their feet, and apparently that's what we're doing.
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vandenberg
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Again, poor Carrie will not even be a runnerup in the Mexican popularity contest. But her sh#t apparently sells papers.
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arrowhead
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Carrie Duncan is Fulano.
No soy por ni contra apatía.
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Bajahowodd
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I Was Thinking The Same Thing
| Quote: | Originally posted by Dave
The girl just doesn't know how to keep her mouth shut.
Looks like she's gonna get kicked out of Mexico...
Again. |
If memory serves me, it's only been four, maybe five years since she ventured back down there. And seemingly, she had learned her lesson. But as
Gaucho noted, she and David invested a ton of money into that club and boutique hotel. And, frankly, even in the best of times, their location seems
to work against it being profitable.
That said, and while I concur with many who mourn the loss of the simpler, quieter Cabo, in the 20+ years that I've traveled there regularly, I can
honestly say that I had only one untoward incident. It was minor. They changed direction on a number of one way street downtown, and a cop pulled me
over for going the wrong way. I did note that there were no directional arrows in sight. He wanted money. I told him I didn't have my wallet with me,
and he said, adios.
The picture Carrie paints is not the place I've encountered. Although I must agree with Jesse that when they import lots of folks from the mainland,
they are going to bring bad habits with them. But, looking back a couple of decades, there was no one there to do the work.
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Bajahowodd
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| Quote: | Originally posted by arrowhead
Carrie Duncan is Fulano. |
[Edited on 4-2-2010 by Bajahowodd]
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mtgoat666
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| Quote: | Originally posted by arrowhead
Carrie Duncan is Fulano. |
arrowhead,
why do you keep trying to throw us off?
you are fulano (and nancy at times).
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MitchMan
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Trying to fix Cabo's problems with volunteers is a pipe dream, albeit well intentioned. You can't fix the corrupt government, faulty systems, corrupt
cops, greedy thieving locals and merchants with volunteers placed there by small business interests. The problem is too insidious and ingrained for
mere volunteers to correct.
It's a cultural thing. You have to fix that culture and that simply cannot be done, even in one generation's time. To fix the culture there has to
be a persistant collective will of the people to do so. That "collective will" does not exist, and as far as I have observed, has not ever existed in
my life time. Also, I agree with CaboBaja, the bad behavior (cultural malaise, in my opinion) exists ever so strongly in the white collar community to
the exact same extent as with the blue collar and peasant stratas of Mexican society.
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Bajahowodd
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I have a slightly different take on it. Think about Cancun and the Riviera Maya. Despite the fact that it is a larger development, there are fewer
complaints than one finds in Cabo. I'm thinking that despite the proliferation of mom and pop time share owners, an underlying cause for the greed and
unethical behavior rests with the ultra ritzy resorts that have been built that attract a panoply of high end business people and the Hollywood types.
It's sort of a quid pro quo.
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monoloco
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One dynamic that I have observed in Los Cabos is that given it's reputation for being party central, a lot of the tourists who go there are just
looking to get stupid. It starts on the plane on the way down and they hit the ground drunk with absolutely no cultural sensibilities, given that,
it's not hard to understand why some of the Mexicans that live there have little respect for them. I call this gringo fatigue. It's easy for me to
understand given the intolerable behavior of many of the visitors there. If you don't respect your clients it becomes easy to abuse them.
[Edited on 4-3-2010 by monoloco]
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wilderone
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Don't read Carrie's article with a jaundiced eye - she is absolutely right and you know it. She's pointing a finger at the government hoping that
they'[ll be shamed into action - it's no secret anymore where the problem lies. I hope they don't target her for retaliation. Her idea has merit,
although it will signify a war between them and the govt - the govt has guns, so I dunno .... !!
It's time for Cabo to reinvest itself - but it will take a lot of policia prosecution. The federal government needs to be that vigilante group - on
the scene to take tourist reports of abuse and swift action against the perpetrators.
Cabo has developed itself into the snake pit that it is now. That needs to be recognized, and local action taken to turn things around. Town
meetings with everyone involved and bring the issues out in the open.
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bajajazz
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No change, same old same old
Amazing, isn't it, that ordinary people still think they have the power to change anything? Those days are long over, if they ever existed at all,
that is.
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