Royal Caribbean is joining two other cruise lines in ending or reducing their travel to Mexico from southern California, a trend that some in the industry attribute the growing violence in the country has scared off tourists.
Royal Caribbean's luxurious Mariner of the Seas departs on Sunday for her last journey from the Port of Los Angeles to the west coast of Mexico, said port spokesman Phillip Sanfield.
The ship then moved his base to Galveston, Texas, offering seven-night trips to the western Caribbean, the company said.
Norwegian and Carnival Cruise Lines are also pulling their ships from the area.But the loss of Mariner of the Seas, Norwegian Star and Carnival Splendor represents most of the cruise ship traffic in Southern California to Mexico, which has been beaten by the violence and slow U.S. economic recovery.
"Certainly, Mexico has some problems," said Sanfield.
Luxury cruises in Southern California have traditionally made stops in Mexican tourist destinations like Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, which have prevented some of the worst drug violence that has swept Mexico in recent years.
"However, people are taking a broader view (...) to violence in other parts of Mexico," Sanfield said.
An estimated 755,000 cruise passengers passed through the Port of Los Angeles last year, but expects that number to drop to 605,000 in 2011, said the port. Only the Mariner of the Seas transported 320,000 passengers in the port in 2010, and Royal Caribbean has had a presence in place for most of the past 20 years.
"They have been one of the main pillars, and we hope you come back here in the future," Sanfield said. "Each time a cruise ship visits a port in southern California, contributes 1 to $ 2 million to the local economy."
Drug-related violence in Mexico began to grow in 2006, the year that President Felipe Calderon sent the army to fight the cartels. On January 8, in the latest bloodshed that has occurred in a tourist destination in Mexico, 14 decapitated bodies were found in the resort of Acapulco. The bodies were found near a shopping mall, with handwritten messages signed by the leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Stewart Chiron, an industry analyst CruiseGuy.com, said that apart from the poor economy, another factor contributing to the decline in travel to Mexico is that passengers are just tired of these routes.
