We think it is time to again talk truthfully about safety and crime in Playa del Carmen.
The
two acts of violence which took place over the last month in Playa del
Carmen raised questions in many people’s minds about safety in this
area. Unfortunately many of the people answering those questions
have no real information and simply offer their own negative opinions
about Playa. So it is time to do several things: talk about
the sad events of the last month, discuss the use of the internet by
ignorant people to fan anti-Mexico fears, and offer sources where
truthful and factual information can be found.
Recent Acts of Violence in Playa del Carmen
In the last few weeks we have experienced two very tragic events here
in Playa. First was the killing of a man from central Mexico whose
business was involved with drug gangs. According to police he fled here
to Playa hoping to avoid retaliation for something he did which angered
the drug gangs. He was shot to death in his car near a restaurant in
the north part of the city. No one else was injured, and the assassins
have not been found.
The second and even more tragic incident was the murder of the Chief
of the Tourist Police. This branch of the city police is charged with
patrolling the tourist/resort zone. The Chief was killed while getting
out of his car on Avenida Juarez, a main thoroughfare from the federal
highway leading to the ferry dock. This was the second attempt on this
officer’s life in the last year. No one has been arrested, and no
evidence has been found to explain why this particular officer was twice
targeted.
Those of us who live here in Playa have been shocked and saddened by
these events. No one likes to hear of such violent acts happening in
their home town. It is particularly horrible to see a young officer
killed in the line of duty. The government, the local community and the
expats who are guests here have all strongly condemned these crimes.
However these events touch more than the local community. The
thousands of tourists who visit here each year want to know what this
means for them. In truth, it has very little effect on visitors.
These were not random acts of violence involving innocent tourists.
No attempt was made to target tourists or the resort area. There is no
evidence that these crimes are related to or represent some sort of
burgeoning crime wave. These victims were specifically chosen for
reasons which we do not fully know. What we do know is that
these crimes did not target, involve or touch tourists, and we know that
there has been no subsequent outbreak of violence around the city. In
short, these are isolated incidents that do not represent a continued
threat.
Put it in Perspective
Still, despite the fact that these two acts didn’t involve tourists,
some folks wonder if they are safe when visiting here. Many people have
publicly spoken of their fear of coming to this part of the world and
question if they shouldn’t change their vacation plans. We say: keep
some perspective.
Crime–even violent crime–is a fact of life in just about every city
in the world. So why do we consider one safer than the next? If it is
the number of crimes, then Playa is most certainly safer than most as its crime rates are lower than many US cities.
If safety is predicated on the type of crime, again Playa
still ranks as among the safest. There are no riots here. There are no
mass shootings and no crimes involving groups of innocent people.
The
fact is that people worry about safety in Mexico because they react
differently, even unfairly, to hearing about a crime in Mexico than they
do about crime elsewhere. For example, when this last summer
began with the Memorial Day weekend, gang violence resulted in six
deaths in Chicago and eight deaths in New York City. During the same
weekend three police officers and four innocent bystanders were shot in
Miami Beach.
Then summer ended with the horrifying act of a man with a high
powered automatic weapon slaughtering five people in an IHOP restaurant
in Carson City Nevada, while over the Labor Day weekend in New York City
13 were murdered, 2 police officers were wounded and 67 were injured by
gunfire in 52 separate shootings.
Despite these horrendous acts leaving dozens of people dead and
scores more injured, no one on TV or the internet told people to avoid
going to New York or Chicago or Nevada. No newspaper article suggested
people avoid the upcoming Broadway shows in Manhattan or skip going to
the Bears games because of violence. And yet two isolated acts of crime
in Playa are treated by many as the collapse of all law and order in
that area. People worry that a trip to the Riviera Maya will turn them
into victims, when in fact they may be safer here than in their own home
town.
How did we end up with such a skewed perception of Mexico?
Why do we have such an unbalanced view of crime in Mexico as opposed to
crime in the US?
Not long ago it may have been because Mexico was the favorite
whipping boy of a news media that feeds on sensationalism. But over the
last year even they have come to acknowledge that the dangers of
violence seen in Central Mexico do not extend to the peaceful shores of
the Caribbean. However where the media left off, the World Wide Web has
taken over. We think much of this anti-Mexico hysteria is generated by
the ignorant and sometimes prejudiced people one encounters on the
internet.
Opinions are Not Facts: Internet Forum Misinformation
In this time of instant gratification and access, most people turn to
the internet for information. The travel industry is no different.
Printed guidebooks have given way to web sites, chat rooms and forums
where people can exchange ideas and opinions. And that isn’t a bad
thing…except when opinion is taken for fact and speculation becomes a
substitution for proof.
It has been our observation over the last few weeks that on certain
internet forums dedicated to discussing Playa del Carmen, the intensity
has been exceeded only by a lack of factual information.
On such forums, unless properly moderated, anyone can literally post
anything, offering “facts” that have no basis in reality. The intentions
of such posters are unknown. Perhaps they are attempts at making the
poster feel important or perhaps they are intentional acts aimed to
denigrate other peoples or countries. But even if we don’t know the
reason for posting fantasy as fact we do know the effect…it creates
false information that misleads people looking for the truth.
How Rumors Become “Facts”
We
will give you some examples: Recently on a popular forum about Playa
del Carmen hosted by a website called playa.info, a thread was started
about a woman’s body found in the sea near the Playa shore with a rope
tied around her. There followed several days of speculation by posters
(the vast majority of who do not live in Playa) over whether or not she
met with foul play. It was even suggested by someone with no facts or
personal knowledge that her death might be evidence that the cartel had
killed her and was moving into the area! Thousands of people read these
baseless speculations until the woman’s son posted that she had drowned
while swimming, and local fishermen finding her floating in the sea had
tied her body to a buoy so that it did not float out to deeper waters
before it could be brought ashore. No murder, no gang retaliation, no
cartels moving into Playa. But for the thousands who read such
irresponsible comments the damage was done. A simple drowning had
quickly become the work of the drug gangs, and Playa was dangerous.
In other postings on playa.info about the recent shootings, it was
suggested that the cartel would be coming after tourists next, that the
drug war was escalating into Playa, and that everyone–but especially
those with children–should avoid Playa to keep from getting hit by stray
bullets. ‘The bad guys are moving in and they are not going anywhere’
was typical of the statements. Of course no statistics, articles or even
governmental warnings were offered in support of these “facts.”
Sometimes People Just Make Stuff Up
A similar situation can be found all around the internet. On
TripAdvisor.com (which bills itself as the largest travel industry
website in the world), a forum dedicated to Playa del Carmen dealt with
the shooting of the Tourist Police Chief by having many posters assert
that most Playa businesses were paying protection money to the drug
cartels. It went further. One individual posted that many businesses
were closing “each day” because of drug cartel pressure.
We were surprised that while living here we had missed a daily
wholesale loss of businesses. When we asked the individual for some
facts or statistics or even personal knowledge about this massive loss
of businesses in the area, his response was that he had been “told” of
two businesses that closed. His story went from daily closings of many
businesses to an anecdotal story of two unnamed businesses. Never mind
that his original claim had been shown to be without basis, the damage
was done. Other people had already picked up on his false claim and
repeated it as “fact.”
In the same vein was the suggestion on the same forum that
patronizing Playa businesses was just giving money to the drug cartels,
since they all paid protection money. When we said we paid no such
protection money and knew no one who did, the response was that we had
to say that because the cartels would punish us if we admitted our
support of them publicly!!! Seriously, that was the response.
The result is that people without knowledge created a new set of
“facts,” i.e. the cartel is already in Playa; it controls Playa’s
businesses; it puts those it can’t control out of business, and it
silences the locals with fear of punishment if they talk about it. That
is some scary stuff. Except there is not a single shred of evidence to
show it is true. It is a fantasy which arises from a “common knowledge”
(i.e. assumption and opinion) fed by too many viewings of the Sopranos
rather than actual facts. Once again, irresponsible and ignorant people are painting a false picture of Playa that too many people see and believe.
Widespread Damage
In fairness to the forums we have just mentioned, they both have
rules that prohibit inflammatory and false statements. Playa.info has
barred further posting on a few of their most inflammatory threads, and
TripAdvisor has done the same, actually removing some of the more
outrageous posts. However neither forum moved to enforce their own guidelines for several days. The prohibition of these false statements was done hesitantly, at best. Why? Internet
websites such as these two make money based upon the number of visitors
to those sites. They sell more advertising, more tours and more
vacation rentals and use the boosted statistics to seek new advertisers.
So a controversial issue like crime, even if spinning out of control on
their own website, is beneficial to them. Unfortunately, it’s not beneficial to others.
Not
only do such irresponsible comments mislead the public seeking actual
information, but they do serious and unwarranted damage to people and
businesses here in Playa. Just a few days ago we spoke with a
local business owner who said he had had $5000 US worth of cancellations
in a single day, and that the people canceling specifically cited
their reason as being the frightening stories about crime in Playa del
Carmen they had read on the playa.info forum. And the damage is
not limited to just this individual or his business. It in turn will
cause damage to his employees, to their families and to the local
businesses where they shop. It will also cause damage to other
businesses such as restaurants, bars and tours that these visitors would
have patronized had they not cancelled their trip. The casual comments and opinions of someone with no knowledge can be magnified on the internet to do real damage.
That damage is not to drug dealers and criminals. That damage is to
local Mexican families. We would ask everyone who posts on the internet
to remember that.
For questioning these irresponsible and false statements, we and
other members of Playa’s expat community have been branded by many on
the internet as “cheerleaders” for Playa. It is said that because we
have businesses that rely on tourists we ignore and hide the facts about
dangers here. That’s not true.
What we really do is demand that dangers of traveling here or
anywhere be discussed responsibly with facts. Innuendo, rumor,
speculation and guesswork are not the foundation of responsible
discussion. And such opinions should never be the basis of deciding
whether you visit Playa or Miami or New York. When deciding where you
can go to safely spend your vacation time you need facts. So the
question is…where do you go to get real information…real facts…about
safety in Playa del Carmen?
Sources for Factual Information
Luckily there are plenty of places where you can get both facts and
some responsible opinions about safety in Mexico, starting with the
governments of the United States and Canada.
The US State Department assists travelers with information about
countries they may be visiting, including issues of crime and safety.
When the US government feels an area may be dangerous to visit, it
issues a travel warning (as now exists for areas in central Mexico). No
such warning has ever been issued for Playa or the state of Quintana
Roo. In fact the US government has consistently said that the Riviera
Maya is NOT experiencing the drug war violence seen elsewhere. Click here for the US State Department’s web page regarding Mexico.
The International Affairs and Foreign Trade division of the
government of Canada has a similar function with a similar result. While
a travel warning has been issued to its citizens traveling to the
central Mexico/US border area, NO warning exists for traveling to the
Riviera Maya or the state of Quintana Roo. Click here for their web page regarding Mexico.
Of course many travelers want more than just bare bones ‘is there a
warning or not’ before making a decision. They want an overall picture
from an objective source. We suggest checking out major respectable news
sources. We googled the following news sources regarding stories on
Mexico safety:
The New York Times, CNN, the San Francisco Chronicle, ABC News, the
Seattle Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News and USA Today all say
the same thing: While there are parts of Mexico that are
dangerous and should be avoided, the Riviera Maya is far removed from
the drug wars and is a safe vacation destination.
The prospective visitor can also check with major travel writers
around the country to see how they feel about safety in Playa and
Mexico. An example is the respected travel author and expert Peter Greenburg,
formerly of NBC News. (A note of full disclosure…we do not know Mr.
Greenburg but he once gave our hotel a rave review based on the
experience of one of his reporters.)
Mr.
Greenburg recently made a statement about the hysteria over Mexico that
goes directly to the heart of so many negative postings on the
internet: “I’ll call a spade a spade here. Mexico has been seen
in an almost racist way by Americans for so many years. They imagine
dusty border towns, guys wearing sombreros and doing shoot ‘em ups.
They see it how it was portrayed in the movies. If you couple that
perception with the drug cartels or with the swine flu or with select
crime reports, suddenly everybody starts running for the border.” Peter Greenburg’s web site has many articles about all aspects of the Riviera Maya, including safety.
Finally if you want to know what is happening here in Playa
you may want to ask the people who live here. There are many
well-written blogs by expats living in this area. Yes we are
sometimes “cheerleaders” about Mexico. We live and work here because we
love it here. Yet if anyone thinks we are blind to dangers or problems,
they are mistaken. We are here with our children and our families. We
walk the streets and go to the beaches. Does anyone think we would do
that in the middle of a war zone? More than any visitors, we stay aware
of the issues of safety here. If it weren’t safe for us, our families
and friends we wouldn’t be here. Here are some of our favorite blogs and
websites written by people who live and work here:
And there are dozens more. Of course there is our own PlayaZone, the blog you are reading now. You will also find numerous Playa based pages on Facebook, including our own. On these blogs and pages you will find the voices of people who live here. And we might be worth listening to.
A Final Note
Mexico
isn’t for everyone. And those who are interested in coming here often
have legitimate reasonable concerns. We neither ignore nor condemn those
concerns. We only ask that people seek out responsible factual
information when looking for answers to their questions.
We will end on a personal note. We have been living here in Mexico
for over six years. Before that we were regular visitors to this area
for another seven years. In that time we have never been the victims of a
violent crime. We have never witnessed a violent crime. The worst thing
that happened to us was the theft of a backpack left unattended on the
beach six years ago.
We realize there is crime here, just as there was in San Francisco
when we lived there. Crime is sadly a part of life everywhere. But to
us, Playa del Carmen is still a safe wonderful place where the pace of
life is slower and the Caribbean beckons with warm blue water. It is our
home and we feel safe here. If that ever changes, our readers will be
among the first to know.
Happy travels to you all. And if you find yourself in Playa del Carmen, please stop by the Luna Blue Hotel & Bar and say hello.