Sun, sand ... and safety: Mexico's deserted beaches have made tourism officials look for a new angle after the Sept. 11 attacks. (Terror Fallout).

September has always been bad for Mexico's tourism industry. Hotel occupancy rates plummet as vacationers return to work, hurricanes pummel the coastlines, and scores of workers are laid off during the season. In tourism parlance, September is known as "Septi-hambre" ("Sept-hunger").

But this year's September hit new lows. Hurricane Juliette tore through the tip of Baja California and Los Cabos. And there was the other, unnatural disaster. When the World Trade Center Towers were destroyed in New York, air travel between Mexico and the United States all but vanished too, along with its tourists.

In the span of just one week, Mexico's airlines lost some US$16.5 million. Hotel occupancy in Cancun, Mexico's quintessential resort town, dropped 30% below average. Analysts across the world cast dark forecasts, with a similar 30% decrease in tourism worldwide for a loss of 26.4 million jobs across the globe.

But amid all the gloomy talk of lost revenue and erstwhile consumer confidence, Mexico's tourism officials sounded a brighter and more optimistic note. They were talking about gain, while everyone else spoke of loss.

"Flying is a concern, and longer flights are a larger concern," says John McCarthy, director of Mexico's National Trust for Tourism Development (Fonatur), who adds that in the wake of the terrorist attacks tourists will prefer safe and familiar destinations. He says that Americans, who might have chosen more exotic destinations like Asia or the Middle East, will now probably opt for Mexico's beaches, where the possibility of some petty crime is preferable to the threat of terrorist violence elsewhere.

"The perception is already there, but we just want to let people know that Mexico is a safe place to be," McCarthy says, emphasizing that flights to Mexico are roughly the same distance as most domestic flights for Americans.

To get this message out to the world, the Tourism Secretariat has already asked Congress for a US$40 million increase in its advertising budget for next year. And it will spend US$35 million through the end of this year alone on publicity in key markets such as the United States and Europe. Officials are also pressuring Congress to adopt a new set of tax laws that would exempt tourists from paying value-added tax on products sold in tourist areas. If these changes are made, Mexico may capture a significant portion of the tourist market when winter arrives in Chicago, New York and Berlin.

Officials also say Mexico will weather the storm better than other nations due to the development of time-share tourism, in which guests buy a part-ownership in a place to stay, and the right to use it for certain weeks each year. Time-share users tend to come in large groups, and stay for 10 days on average. Mexico has more time-share properties than any country except the United States, and time-sharers tend not to cancel reservations.

"These are people who will be demanding tickets, and creating the necessary critical mass to bring some life back to these towns" such as Cancun, McCarthy says.

In Cancun, where nearly the entire population of 600,000 depends directly or indirectly on tourism, one-sixth of the guest rooms are time-shares. In Puerto Vallarta and Los Cabos, the proportion is nearly 40%.

But for the time being, the beaches remain emptier than normal. Hotel occupancy was 10% below normal during September, officials said, but they expect to see traffic pick up by December, allowing the sector to recapture losses suffered immediately after the attacks.

Last year, 20 million foreign tourists visited Mexico's beaches, 85% of whom were Americans. They spent US$8.5 billion, roughly 10% of Mexico's GDP. Currently Mexico is the eighth most visited country in the world, behind France, the United States, Spain, Italy, China, England and Russia. If this latest marketing strategy succeeds, Mexico could move a couple notches up on the list.

Graham Gori is a Mexico City-based freelance writer.