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 Travel & Outdoors | March 2007 
Higher Prices, Passport Rules Could Rain on Cancun's Party
 Laura Bly - USA TODAY
| | On the tables in Cancun, Mexico: Revelers party at the Coco Bongo nightclub last March. Spring breakers now need passports for Cancun. (Gregory Bull/AP) |
Now that bikinis and flip-flops have supplanted hardhats along the beaches of Cancun, which was battered by Hurricane Wilma in 2005, the refurbished Mexican resort is ready to reclaim its title as spring break's "party-hearty central" in the annual migration that peaks this month.
But students who hope to erase memories of term papers and snowstorms by downing tequila at Cancun Seρor Frog's and other Cancun watering holes are facing two additional obstacles this year: extensive post-Wilma upgrades that have translated to higher room rates and a more upscale target audience, and new passport requirements for Americans who travel by air between the USA and Mexico, Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean and Central and South America.
"In terms of student choice, Cancun ranks No. 1" among collegians, says Kathleen Crislip, student travel expert at About.com. But the U.S. passport rule, which took effect Jan. 23, has affected spring bookings, both from a cost factor (new passports are $97) and because regular applications can take more than six weeks to process.
What's more, the estimated 40,000 spring breakers who descend on Cancun through mid-April will find that the resort is upgrading.
"A year beyond Hurricane Wilma, Cancun is trying to refine its image.
You won't see the keg stands downtown or 10 kids to a room" that characterized spring break during its heyday in the late 1990s, says CheapTickets.com's Brian Hoyt. The company's "Spring Break Cheapometer" lists an average daily room rate of $229.06 for Cancun in March; only Key West rates are more expensive among 10 destinations surveyed.
Travel agents say the passport requirements have helped increase spring break bookings to such domestic destinations as Panama City, Fla., Colorado ski resorts and South Padre Island, Texas, as well as to Puerto Rico and Rosarito Beach, Mexico, an oceanfront town about 30 minutes south of San Diego. Passports aren't required for flights to U.S. territories or for travelers who drive to Mexico and Canada.
Also expecting a passport-related boost this year: perennial favorite Panama City, Fla., where inquiries are up by a third over last year and an estimated 300,000 students will congregate over a 40-day period that crests in mid-March. And unlike Cancun, the Panhandle town isn't throwing cold water on the seasonal bacchanalia.
"We decided back in 2000 that if we were going to have (spring break) here, we'd embrace it," tourism chief Robert Warren says. "The college students of today are the professionals, families and empty-nesters of tomorrow."
lbly@usatoday.com |
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