Current:Home > InvestAcapulco races to restart its tourism engine after Hurricane Otis devastates its hotels, restaurants-LoTradeCoin
Acapulco races to restart its tourism engine after Hurricane Otis devastates its hotels, restaurants
View Date:2024-12-25 01:02:23
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) — The keyboard and drums from a musical show thump just yards from a mountain of storm debris and fractured hotels left by Hurricane Otis three weeks ago. On the northern end of Acapulco Bay, hairdressers and masseuses sweep branches from a beach.
Across the Pacific resort of Acapulco, residents work with a singular purpose: restart the tourism engine of this city of 1 million people as soon as possible.
“If there’s no tourism, nothing happens,” said Juan Carlos Díaz, a 59-year-old laborer waiting for food distributed by soldiers. “It’s like a little chain, it generates (money) for everyone.”
Otis, a Category 5 hurricane that smacked Acapulco on Oct. 25, damaged 80% of its hotels and 95% of its business, as well as leaving at least 48 people dead, 26 missing and impacting about 250,000 families, according to government data. Residents are striving to ensure the devastation is not a knockout blow to the once-legendary resort.
Since Acapulco’s golden era during the latter half of the 20th century – when Jackie and John F. Kennedy honeymooned here and Elvis Presley and other stars visited – the rise of other destinations like Cancun combined with organized crime to drive away international visitors.
But the city still had a devoted following of Mexican tourists who came for its beaches and nightlife. It had been hosting sporting events and major business gatherings, including an international mining conference that was in town when Otis hit. The resort boasted 20,000 hotel rooms, 377 hotels and a bevy of other vacation accommodations.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised that Acapulco will be ready to receive visitors this holiday season, if in reduced numbers , but not everyone believes it. Most think it will take the city a year or two to come back from Otis’ devastation.
Yair Guevara, head waiter at the Dreams hotel, one of the tall towers hollowed out by Otis’ 165 mph winds, showed up for work the day after the storm and began coordinating cleaning shifts for 20 workers. During those early days they were paid in food and basic necessities, he said.
On a recent morning, about 30 members of a collective of masseuses and hairdressers unearthed pieces of wrecked boats as they cleaned a beach on northern Acapulco Bay.
“We want the tourists to come soon,” Linda Vidal said, explaining why they were sweeping the beach.
The famous La Quebrada cliff divers who have left tourists breathless for decades have been cleaning the ocean floor of debris in the area where they end their more than 100-foot swan dives into the Pacific.
“There was a lot of debris, glass and metal,” said Eligio Álvarez, who at 50 years old still launches himself into the roiling water. He and others are rushing to set up virtual shows like they did during the pandemic to earn money until the tourists can return. Getting steady internet restored is their current obstacle.
Jesús Zamora, a member of the state tourism council in Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, rebuilt part of his restaurant with fallen limbs and in four days had a section of it reopened.
Last weekend, he hosted dozens of diners, among them officials who were taking a census of the damage to the tourism sector. Zamora and others still don’t know how much aid that census will bring them or when it will come.
“We’re just hoping” that it comes, he said.
López Obrador has met multiple times with business leaders from Acapulco’s tourism sector. While they’ve kept their comments discreet, they believe the support offered so far – loans and tax extensions – are positive but insufficient.
The president has prioritized direct aid to the poorest families, though much of that assistance too has not yet materialized.
At the Flamingos Hotel – once host to Hollywood legends John Wayne, Errol Flynn and Cary Grant – a handful of the owners’ friends recently were picking up branches and debris around the place where the most famous Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller, spent the last years of his life. The lush trees, including a century-old ceiba, are stripped of their branches.
Diana Santiago, the owner’s daughter, thinks rebuilding the pink hotel’s spartan 40 rooms will be slow because they don’t yet know where the money will come from.
“We are going to open an account (for donations) to survive these months,” Santiago said. They also plan to fall back on a survival strategy from the pandemic: selling take-out food until they can reopen the restaurant with its spectacular views. The hotel rooms will come last.
The big hotel chains also doubt they will be able to open as soon as López Obrador would like even though they swarm with workers, many who have arrived from out of state.
And even though the president has assured people that the Mexican Open tennis tournament – Acapulco’s most emblematic sporting event -- will continue its uninterrupted run since 2001 in February with champions like Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, the organizers have yet to confirm that.
The Princess hotel, the enormous glass and balconied pyramid where the tennis players stay, has not said when it will reopen. Otis left it in skeletal form.
The government declared an end to the emergency in Acapulco last week, but many in the city still lack the basic necessities and mountains of garbage and debris continue to clog streets.
Gregorio García, a cab driver who was back to work after the storm as soon as he could patch a tire and find gasoline, conceded there are residents who complain that the tourism sector is prioritized in recovery efforts. He still doesn’t have electricity or water at home, but he doesn’t agree with the complaints.
“If there aren’t tourists there’s nothing,” he said.
__
AP writers Mark Stevenson and Carlos Rodríguez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
veryGood! (15125)
Related
- Amazon Best Books of 2024 revealed: Top 10 span genres but all 'make you feel deeply'
- Britney Spears Condemns Security Attack as Further Evidence of Her Not Being Seen as an Equal Person
- Q&A: How White Flight and Environmental Injustice Led to the Jackson, Mississippi Water Crisis
- Britney Spears Files Police Report After Being Allegedly Assaulted by Security Guard in Las Vegas
- Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson weighs in on report that he would 'pee in a bottle' on set
- Warming Trends: Climate Insomnia, the Decline of Alpine Bumblebees and Cycling like the Dutch and the Danes
- Apple moves into virtual reality with a headset that will cost you more than $3,000
- Ashley Benson Is Engaged to Oil Heir Brandon Davis: See Her Ring
- Is Kyle Richards Finally Ready to File for Divorce From Mauricio Umansky? She Says...
- John Mayer Cryptically Shared “Please Be Kind” Message Ahead of Taylor Swift Speak Now Release
Ranking
- Wisconsin’s high court to hear oral arguments on whether an 1849 abortion ban remains valid
- The debt ceiling deal bulldozes a controversial pipeline's path through the courts
- Inside Clean Energy: Three Charts to Help Make Sense of 2021, a Year Coal Was Up and Solar Was Way Up
- When the State Cut Their Water, These California Users Created a Collaborative Solution
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Mixed Use
- NPR's Terence Samuel to lead USA Today
- To save money on groceries, try these tips before going to the store
- Victor Wembanyama's Security Guard Will Not Face Charges After Britney Spears Incident
Recommendation
-
Georgia's humbling loss to Mississippi leads college football winners and losers for Week 11
-
RHONJ: Find Out If Teresa Giudice and Melissa Gorga Were Both Asked Back for Season 14
-
Two Towns in Washington Take Steps Toward Recognizing the Rights of Southern Resident Orcas
-
In Pakistan, 33 Million People Have Been Displaced by Climate-Intensified Floods
-
One person is dead after a shooting at Tuskegee University
-
Supreme Court sides with Jack Daniel's in trademark dispute with dog toy maker
-
A Court Blocks Oil Exploration and Underwater Seismic Testing Off South Africa’s ‘Wild Coast’
-
State Farm has stopped accepting homeowner insurance applications in California