Nuevo Progreso begs tourists to return

NUEVO PROGRESO — From the man who paints tourists’ names on grains of rice to the teenagers selling pirated DVDs, everyone can sum up business in this tourist-dependent Mexican border town in two words.

“It’s dead,” said Angel Guerrero, 86, who sells fruit-flavored ices near the Progreso International Bridge.

“I’m barely earning anything right now.”

Over the last two months business owners and vendors in Nuevo Progreso have reported a considerable drop in tourists, leading to revenue losses as high as 40 percent compared to the same period last year, said Miguel Marquez, Nuevo Progreso and Rio Bravo’s tourism director.

New U.S. passport regulations, a slowdown in the U.S. economy and the presence of the Mexican military are to blame, say business leaders in the city.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered troops to cities along his country’s border with the United States in January to combat the presence of drug cartels in those areas. The crackdown led to a Jan. 8 shootout between soldiers and suspected cartel members in Rio Bravo, followed by another gun battle in Reynosa the following day.

In Reynosa, bars and nightclubs now close their doors at 10 p.m., ending the all-night party atmosphere in neighborhoods like Zona Rosa. The early closures are to avoid conflict with the military’s patrols.

In Nuevo Progreso, where the local economy is based almost entirely on U.S. tourists and visitors, the situation is especially dire.

Luis Urcullo, whose family owns Angel’s department store and pharmacy in the commercial zone, said 80 percent of his annual sales typically come between November and April.

“This week, we’re down about 30 percent from last. Next week’s going to be lower and then it will keep getting lower and lower as the people head back north,” Urcullo said.

The Mexican military

On Wednesday, a group of Nuevo Progreso business owners called a news conference in McAllen to plead for Americans to return to their city. Of particular concern are the Winter Texans, who make up a substantial portion of the border tourism market and are set to head back to their northerly homes soon until the end of the year.

“It’s a safe community,” pleaded Javier Lozano, a dentist in Nuevo Progreso. “The military is there just to give a little more security to the tourist people.”

Southbound crossings at the Progreso International Bridge in January were down 10 percent from the same period last year, according to statistics compiled by the Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development, a consortium of Texas public universities tasked by the state Legislature with helping Texas border communities in their economic development efforts.

But with everyone congregating in a four-block stretch directly south of the bridge, Nuevo Progreso still feels relatively bustling.

The problem is vendors and businesses rely on the money they make in the winter to carry them through the slow months in the summer.

Saul Braulio has been selling jewelry on the street in Nuevo Progreso for 11 years and in a good winter month earns about $500, he said.

This February, he only earned about $300, which will stretch his family thin when summer arrives and the traffic only warrants working weekends and holidays.

“This time of day, last year, there’d have been people everywhere. You couldn’t move,” he said in Spanish, about lunchtime Thursday.

U.S. passports

Adding to the problem is a measure that went into effect Feb. 1 requiring U.S. citizens to carry either a passport or a birth certificate and driver’s license to return from Mexico, the representatives at Wednesday’s news conference said.

“There’s a lot of confusion. A lot of people think they can’t go to Nuevo Progreso without a passport,” said Gilbert Garza, whose family owns Arturo’s, a popular Nuevo Progreso restaurant.

Stricter regulations requiring U.S. citizens returning from Mexico to show a passport are not scheduled to go into effect until June 2009.

While restaurants and shops have been hardest hit, the economic impact has even trickled down to Nuevo Progreso’s booming medical industry, said Lozano, the president of Nuevo Progreso’s dental college.

“For me it’s not bad, I have an established practice right in front of the bridge,” he said. “But there’s 175 dentists in Nuevo Progreso. It’s the new ones that are low.”

Calderon has suggested he will eventually pull the military back from the border, but no timetable has been set, according to Mexican media reports.

For now, business owners and vendors in Nuevo Progreso are looking forward to March 21 — the date set this year for the city’s annual tourist day. They are hopeful to bring in close to the roughly 25,000 tourists who attended last year.

But even if they don’t come, Urcullo said he wouldn’t entirely write off 2008.

“I think the worst year was 2002 (after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States),” he said. “It’s not so bad this year.”

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James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4428.