Cancun is What Exactly Mexico Designed it to be

Cancun is not my cup of tea, but boy is it an incredible success story of engineering: the Mexican government engineered a tourist hotspot custom-built to attract American dollars, from a place that had nothing in 5 short years. 

In the late 60s, Mexico ran a huge trade deficit with the US. They were industrializing rapidly, importing machinery and materials that had to be paid for in dollars. Tourism offered a solution, a way to earn foreign currency using assets Mexico already had: beaches, climate, and ancient ruins.

They actually spent months building a computer model, feeding data to an IBM 360 to analyze Mexico’s entire coastline, evaluating climate, beach quality, accessibility, and development costs. The computer selected Cancun #1, a remote sandbar that had a population of 3 people during the 1970 census. The 2nd option was Ixtapa. 

Cancuns location was perfect: turquoise water, white sand, ideal weather, and proximate to all of the eastern seaboard, the largest concentration of Americans enduring brutal winters and seeking affordable beach escapes. 

Hawaii was already popular for folks on the west coast but Cancun offered what Hawaii couldn’t: a winter getaway without the 12+ hour flight, and a much cheaper experience. 

The Caribbean location and dry season from November to April aligned perfectly with when East Coasters most desperately wanted sun.

The government invested over $100 million in infrastructure, building an international airport, roads, utilities, and dredging lagoons. They built the hotel zone for foreigners and downtown Cancun for workers, all in 5 years

They marketed Cancun aggressively to Americans, positioning it as a safe, convenient Caribbean alternative with better prices than anywhere else. Hotels catered explicitly to American tastes with English-speaking staff, American brands (Hyatt, Hilton etc) familiar food options, and all-inclusive packages.

The genius was creating a place where Americans could feel like they’d “been to Mexico” without experiencing much of Mexico at all - you could go to a Hilton, speak English, eat burgers and hot dogs, pay in dollars, but get to say you went abroad. 

At the time, “going abroad" was often seen as something for the wealthy or the adventurous. For many Americans, especially those from the interior who don’t travel internationally often (as you see on the map) a Cancun vacation counts as cultural exploration, a stamp in the passport that feels adventurous while remaining completely comfortable and affordable. You didn’t need a passport to go there until 2007, which was helpful too. 

The whole thing worked brilliantly, beyond their expectations. They started the project in 1970 and welcomed the first guest in 1975. By 1980, Cancun had grown to a half million tourists and a population of 34,000 supporting tourism. 

Cancun is EXACTLY what Mexico designed it to be: a dollar-extraction machine that turns American desire for easy, safe “foreign” travel into billions of dollars flowing to Mexico. 

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This story from the New York Times in 1972 was a good read: Mexico had a young Harvard-trained head of INFRATUR spearheading the program

Have you heard of Isla Mujeres? Playa Norte?