The demise of Acapulco: Diving off a cliff

FOR the first time in 55 years, this week a hurricane and a tropical storm arrived almost simultaneously on Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts, killing at least 80 people (with a further 58 missing) and leaving tens of thousands homeless. If that was a double dose of bad news on a three-day holiday weekend, Acapulco, the south-western resort where Hollywood divas once flirted with cliff-divers, was thrice-cursed. It bore the brunt of the storm just as it is struggling to overcome a collapse in tourism and the stigma of becoming Mexico’s most violent city. “Acapulco is sinking,” splashed Reforma, a newspaper.

Though the resort’s heyday is long past, it did enjoy a recent revival in upmarket tourism. That proved brief. The number of foreign visitors flying in plunged from over 350,000 in 2006 to fewer than 61,000 in 2012. It received just nine cruise ships last year, down from 81 in 2011. Even those most reckless of tourists, American spring-breakers, have balked. Their numbers have plummeted by 92% in three years.

The main reason is drug-related violence. Acapulco, a city of 850,000, saw more than 1,000 murders last year, half as many again as Mexico City, which has ten times more people. According to officials at the interior ministry, two of its poorest districts, Renacimiento and Zapata, are the most violent in Mexico.

Renacimiento was partially washed away by tropical storm Manuel, which left thousands of Acapulco’s residents, and many more in the mountains behind, without homes. About 40,000 tourists gutsy enough to visit were stranded for days—some in posh hotels living on rations and without electricity. Their cars were underwater; their flights cancelled (the airport reopened, but only partially, on September 17th); and all the main roads out were blocked by mudslides. In one hotel well-heeled guests reacted in horror on learning that they might be evacuated to an emergency shelter, perhaps fearing the conditions that Acapulco’s homeless have to endure.

President Enrique Peña Nieto joined the relief effort. He has launched reforms to make Mexico a faster-growing, more modern economy. Acapulco’s fate is a reminder that the country’s backward south needs attention, too.