After Wilma, Cancun Awaits Return of Tourists… Without a Beach

Hurricane Wilma not only hamstrung the powerhouse of Mexican tourism in October, bringing hefty losses while Cancun´s hotels, restaurants and nightclubs were out of action, but it also took a jab on something much harder to replace: Cancun´s beach.

After suffering mass cancellations, hotels are quickly picking up the pieces, with about half of Cancun´s hotel capacity likely to be ready by January.

Tourism officials are desperate for people to know that Cancun will rise from the wreckage as a new and better holiday destination, as businesses take advantage of the hiatus in visitors to give themselves a facelift.

But the absence of Cancun´s showcase beach jeopardizes their most enthusiastic efforts. “If there´s no beach, people won´t come,” says Jean Pierre Sorin, the manager of Le Meridien, one of more than 40 of Mexico´s flashiest resort hotels that could once make the boast of being just “a step away” from the 8-mile-long beach.

Now, waves lap against hotel boundaries and access to what used to be the beach is restricted. Now, along most of the seashore, there is nothing.

The Caribbean state of Quintana Roo alone, which includes the resorts of Cancun, Playa del Carmen, Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, accounts for a third of Mexico´s $11 billion annual tourism receipts, equal to 8 percent of gross domestic product.

Tourism is surpassed only by the local oil industry and remittances from the 10 million Mexican migrants in the US in the amount of foreign currency brought into the economy.