Chetumal, Q.R. — Hotels in the south of Quintana Roo say they intend to break relations with the CPTQR and create an independent tourism promotion council after years of unequal treatment.
Bertha Medina, president of the Hotel Association, explained that the southern zone has not experienced the promotional support that the northern destinations have. She says that the Consejo De Promoción Turística De Quintana Roo (CPTQR) has failed to meet the needs in promoting the southern region of the state.
She says they are convinced that they are not favored like the hotels in the northern region. With this, Medina says they are going to form their own tourism promotion council.
Median explained that the breaking of relations with the CPTQR “is because we feel that the providers are not doing what we really need, what we really want in the south. We do not tell them what they should do because everyone knows his responsibility, but in the south, we are convinced that we have not been favored as the tourist destinations in the north,” she said referring to destinations such as Cancun and Riviera Maya.
“This independent agency for tourism promotion, created with the unanimous endorsement of the hotels of the south, will allow the design of promotion programs and strategies that will be financed with the contribution of those partners who wish to participate,” said Medina.
More than 60 businesses in the southern region of Quintana Roo have voted in favor of the creation of an independent tourist promotion council. Once created, hotels will no longer have to depend on the CPTQR or anyone else. They will be able to develop their own promotion programs and once completed, the budget will be divided among those who want to participate, she explained.
This year, the CPTQR announced a tourism promotion budget of 700 million pesos for the south, but only 236 million were allocated.
Last month, hotel businessmen from Isla Mujeres created their own association for Costa Mujeres. In March, a group of 13 were sworn in as the new board of the Costa Mujeres Hotel Association by Bernardo Cueto Riestra, the state’s Secretary of Tourism.
Until then, Isla Mujeres had fallen under the representation of the Hotel Association of Cancun, Puerto Morelos & Isla Mujeres, which has since changed its name to the Asociación de Hoteles de Cancún y Puerto Morelos. The Costa Mujeres President, Ramón Rosello Pons, did not provide a reason for the creation of their own association.