| | |  Travel & Outdoors | November 2009 
Cancun Shoring up for Winter with Beach Restoration
 Laura Del Rosso - Travel Weekly
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November 10, 2009
| | Cancun is defiantly the most famous beach place in Mexico. With an astonishing infrastructure, Cancun is more recommendable for people who want to have wild nights than for the ones searching for peace an tranquility. | |
Cancun's beautiful beaches, which have always been the resort city's main attraction, are getting a face-lift this fall in time for the winter peak season.
Starting Oct. 19, a $120 million restoration project will pump more than 1 billion gallons of sand onto miles of beaches along the coastline of Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel that were damaged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
The project is expected to be completed by the first week of December, according to Jesus Almaguer, director general of the Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau.
"It's necessary for us to maintain our main attraction and continue to have high-quality beaches," he said.
After Hurricane Wilma, the federal and Quintana Roo state government undertook work to restore the beaches, but much of the sand has since washed away. It's become an issue in Cancun, which is known for its spectacular white-sand stretches of beach.
The issue made the news earlier this year when the Mexican navy closed off hundreds of feet of coastline in Cancun after a hotel allegedly built a breakwater and illegally used pumps to move sand from the sea floor to the beach.
With this fall's project, Almaguer said, the beaches will be restored to their previous, pre-Wilma condition, with a width of at least 140 feet.
In addition, an association of state government agencies and the travel industry has been organized to conduct careful monitoring of the beaches so to make sure that sand isn't moved illegally and that beach erosion is reported as it occurs.
The project is using tons of pipeline to pump the more than 1 billion gallons of sand from a nearby sea floor to replenish the sand on the beaches. Almaguer said it is a much more extensive project and better designed than the restoration after Hurricane Wilma.
A team of researchers studied factors that led to the erosion, such as the variety of climate cycles, with the purpose to provide a permanent and environmentally sensitive solution, according to a statement from the bureau.
A project engineer said the sand that is being pumped to the beach is of a thicker density and, in the event of another hurricane, the volume of loss is expected to be much less than with Hurricane Wilma.
The project will cover eight miles of beach in Cancun, three miles at Playa del Carmen and one mile at Cozumel.
Back on track
Meanwhile, Almaguer said that hoteliers and tour operators are reporting that advance bookings for the upcoming winter peak season look strong for Cancun.
The Mexican resort city should expect arrival numbers at about the same level as last year's winter season, he said.
Almaguer said Cancun was "very confident right now" that the arrival numbers for December through March will be about the same as the same period last year, which would be "pretty good," since the winter of 2008-09 saw visitor arrivals jump by 9.5% from the previous year.
Almaguer said he is confident the resort has put much of the struggles of 2009 - the fears of drug violence and swine flu - behind it and, with hoteliers and tour operators creating packages with "very reasonable and affordable rates," the resorts will be able to draw consumers even in continuing, difficult economic times in the U.S. It is the U.S. economy that continues to be a main concern for Mexico's tourism industry, he said.
"We are doing a lot of promotions, and we believe that we can compete on price without sacrificing quality or the high standards of our facilities to offer a very appealing Caribbean and exotic destination," he said.
Restoring the famous white-sand beaches of Cancun is part of that effort, he added. |
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