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Goin' South - Checking out the competition in Mexico

I'd never been on an all-inclusive holiday before. Frankly, the concept had never really appealed to me. I mean, c'mon.
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I'd never been on an all-inclusive holiday before. Frankly, the concept had never really appealed to me. I mean, c'mon. Me? On a packaged holiday with hundreds of other pale-faced vacationers? Following the tour guide - herd-like and passive - from airport to bus to hotel to pool? Splayed out on an over-crowded beach filled with northern beluga bodies turning pink like spawned-out salmon? Unlikely right? But things change.

With a difficult anniversary to face at home, a daughter who was already trudging the gringo trail in Central America, another daughter who just wanted to go "somewhere hot and sunny" for Easter, and a body suffering the slings and arrows of middle age, I decided one cold Whistler morning that a southern beach holiday might not be such a bad idea to contemplate. Suddenly I found myself surfing the Internet looking at possible scenarios for a short tropical getaway.

And what I found blew my mind! The last-minute deals were inconceivably cheap. A week's package (including flight food and hotel) could be had for as low as a thousand bucks Canadian per person. All I had to do was plunk down my credit card number and all this could be mine. It was worth contemplating a little further...

Mexican destinations, as it turns out, were at the top of the price-to-quality equation. From Ixtapa to Cancun, from Cabo to Huatulco, innumerable all-inclusive packages in four-and five-star hotels were being offered at rock-bottom prices. And this for the busiest holiday week in the Mexican calendar - Semana Santa. It really didn't make sense to me.

But I jumped at the opportunity nevertheless. My search narrowed. East coast or west coast? North or south of the Tropic of Cancer? Four or five star accommodation? It was all so confusing. Still, I persevered.

And it didn't take long for me to make a decision. Although lesser known than its more mainstream cousins to the north, Huatulco on the southwestern tip of Oaxaca is where I decided we'd vacation.

Why? A couple of reasons. First of all, my oldest daughter was already in the region. I figured we could rendezvous at one of the hotels in Huatulco and she and her boyfriend could take a week's "holiday" from their back-packers' journey before resuming on their penny-pinching path. The second reason was more nostalgic. The stunning beaches of southwestern Oaxaca had been the last destination my wife and I had travelled to before her untimely death last April. It had been our first trip together without the kids - a kind of rite of passage for us - and it had been hugely successful.

Although I was a touch nervous about returning there without her, the place still drew me. As for the all-inclusive nature of the deal this time around, I wasn't too concerned. I figured if worse came to worse, we'd simply use the hotel as a base camp and explore from there. After all, the full package deal cost me less than a conventional round-trip ticket Vancouver-Huatulco. How could I lose?

As it turns out, I needn't have worried...

Even our choice of hotels proved to be fortuitous. You see, Huatulco is not your cliché'd all-inclusive resort destination. The newest - and most progressive - of Mexico's many coastal holiday sites, its developmental history parallels Whistler's to a surprisingly high degree.

More importantly, the Bahias de Huatulco tourism area (roughly equivalent to our own RMOW) features a number of environmental initiatives that are nothing short of inspiring. And challenging, too.

Did you know, for example, that the whole region operates on 100 per cent renewable energy? That's right. Forget burning gas and oil. These guys have moved on. And it's working really well for them. In Mexico, you say?

Indeed. "We get all our energy from the wind," says local tourism consultant Jose Antonia Islas. His pride in the program is evident. "It's produced in nearby Salina Cruz, you know, at the point where Mexico is at its narrowest between Atlantic and Pacific coasts." In one of those incongruous situations where a third language is needed to bridge the communication gap, he and I are speaking in French. His accent is impeccable however - cultured and urbane. "They say it's the second best place in the world for wind turbines," he continues. "Very consistent from month to month. It's a big part of our 'Green Globe' certification, vous savez ."

Green Globe? Hmm. Pretty prestigious designation. Whistler doesn't even have that. But I'm getting sidetracked.

Senor Islas is just as proud of the local water treatment program. "All the irrigation here is done with grey water," he says. "As far as pollutants - nothing goes back into the ocean." He smiles, if only a little self-consciously. "And that's a huge step up from past resort developments in this country."

A lecturer at the local college (we'll get back to that in a moment), senor Islas is an articulate speaker with a thorough understanding of the ups and downs of 21 st century tourism. We hit it off right away - which is lucky for me. Chatting with him for a few minutes is like attending a master class in regional history. "There were less than 3,000 people living in the region here before Highway 200 was built in 1984," he recounts. "Most were subsistence farmers and fishers. The new road now accessed an amazing stretch of southern coastline, however. And its beauty was amply evident. That's when FONATUR (the national trust that developed Cancun) decided to get involved."

The plan back then was ambitious. Buoyed by their success on the Caribbean Coast (tempered, of course by some hard-earned lessons in the limits of industrial tourism in Cancun and Los Cabos) the men from FONATUR created a master plan for Huatulco that projected a total of 30,000 rooms to be built by 2018. Then the economy intervened.

"It didn't quite go the way its investors hoped it would," admits senor Islas. He chuckles sadly. "It just became a case of too much supply and too little demand. But in my opinion, that's turned out to be a good thing for Huatulco. Instead of rushing ahead and just building, building, building, we've had time to develop in a more organic way."

He cites beautiful Huatulco National Park, a 6,500-hectare chunk of still-wild coastal jungle cut out of the heart of the proposed development in 1997, as a prime example of a serendipitous consequence to a slowing economy. "Would they have created the park if their plan had really taken off? I don't think so. But now it's there. In perpetuity. And it provides a great natural legacy for the region."

But is it working? Today, Bayas de Huatulco accounts for little more than 2,000 rooms. "For Sale" signs are everywhere. For the tourist it's wonderful. Imagine, if you can, Whistler with all its amenities, but with only a tenth the number of current visitors. Talk about spoiled. But can that experience be sustained? Particularly given the prices that they're currently offering it for...

"It's been challenging," says Islas. "Oaxaca is a very complex state. It has over 570 municipalities! It's very difficult to get things done quickly here. But I think we're beginning to turn the corner. People are still just discovering this region. As far as market penetration, we've got a lot of potential to exploit." He smiles again. "And with our young work force - many of them now entering the job market with tourism degrees from our own Universidad del Mar - we've got the personnel to be able to take it to the next level now."

So what about the local university? "It was created by a Spaniard," recounts senor Islas. "He's the head of education for all of Oaxaca. And very ambitious. Because he saw the ravages of unchecked tourism in his own country (think Costa del Sol) he understood the need to create programs across the state that addressed those problems. That's how we ended up with Universidad del Mar in Huatulco. In essence, the resort becomes a living laboratory for its students. And we get professionally-trained staff from all over the country." He pauses. Takes a breath. "It's another great legacy for this region."

Okay. Let me get this straight. A third-world resort town that operates on 100 per cent renewable energy, that features a local post-secondary institution focused on local professional development and global tourism issues, and has a 6,500-hectare national park cut out of prime coastal real estate right on its doorstep - what's not to like?

And it begs the question: What the heck is Whistler waiting for?

What really struck me on this little southern sojourn was just how hard Mexicans are working to make their home-grown tourism destinations compelling in an increasingly competitive - and noisy - global market. We, on the other hand, do a lot of talking. And a heck of a lot of mutual back-patting. When are we going to wake up and realize that we're quickly becoming obsolete?