'My mom told me not to go': Spring Breakers shy away from Mexican excursions.

In their matching burnt orange T-shirts, Loreto Guevara and his friends stuck out in the city's downtown market like a herd of longhorns stampeding through a grocery store.

But the dozens of street hawkers competing for their attention Monday were eager to greet the four University of Texas students - the last vestiges of a customer base that has all but run dry.

Once a staple of a Spring Break trip for college students, the cheap trinkets and lax drinking requirements available south of the border are increasingly cast aside for the alcohol-fueled pleasures of South Padre Island, according to Matamoros business owners.
And stricter requirements on travel documents needed to re-enter the United States and growing concern over border violence this year are expected to only drive them further away.

"It's been a decreasing trend for the last 10 years," said Salvador Castañeda, a hotel operator active in the city's tourism and business associations.

"With new securities on the border since 9/11 people are afraid of coming."

Matamoros' tourism office, which used to run print and TV ads in the United States to attract young partygoers, has since pulled their money.

Castañeda described Guevara and his friends as more of an anomaly than a precursor to the hundreds of college students who used to flock over the international bridge each spring.

Guevara, a 20-year-old junior from Brownsville, had heard about January's street battles between drug cartel operatives and the Mexican military while away at college in Austin. But he said he never thought twice about bringing his buddies to Matamoros during their Spring Break trip.

"You're going to be OK here if you know where you're going, and you know what you're doing," he said.

On South Padre Island, however, tour bus operators who used to offer Spring Breakers shuttles into Matamoros have essentially ignored them, focusing instead on another lucrative crowd with more of an interest in cultural traveling.

"We've shifted to the Winter Texans," said Debra Fassel of Original Tour Co. "The Spring Breakers just aren't showing up."

Lynda Luther, who runs the competing Fun-Fun-Fun Tours, described her business as "pretty much closed" but still has flyers posted at half a dozen hotels and visitors centers across the island. If an interested group of students were to call her up, she said, she still would probably organize a trip.

But so far this season, her phone's been dead.

And Inertia Tours and Events canceled its Mexico trips this year suspecting most college students wouldn't bring the proper travel documents with them.

As of this year, U.S. citizens seeking to re-enter the country are required to present a photo ID and another official government identification such as a birth certificate at customs checkpoints. Next year, a passport will be required.

But Oklahoma State University senior Matt Allen still seemed confused while relaxing on the beach front Monday afternoon.
"Don't you need a passport to go there now?" he said, his arms wrapped around two young co-eds. "I've got everything I wanted out of my vacation right here in my arms."

One of the girls - Lindsay Riley of Houston - had other concerns.

"You can get (kidnapped) there," she said. "My mom told me not to go, and I'm listening."
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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.