Mexican hotels to build hurricane defences

Monday, 18 Nov, 2005 0

WTM Special Report: Hotels in Mexico battered by hurricane Wilma will develop safety shelters on floors and public spaces by erecting reinforced concrete walls and installing emergency generators.

Under plans put forward by tourist officials, windows on a designated floor – probably the third – will be blocked out and replaced with walls while ballrooms will be strengthened to protect against devastating storms.

The structures, rather than churches and schools, would then be used to shelter holidaymakers during a hurricane.

Javier Pedrero, tourism promotions secretary for the state of Quintana Roo, said lessons had been learned from Wilma, which devastated areas of the Mexican coast last month.

“We are well prepared for such events but you can always learn lessons,” he said. “We will look at building shelters in hotels by putting a concrete wall, rather than windows, on one floor and doing the same with large areas such as ballrooms.

“It will be more comfortable for holidaymakers.”

The move follows a nightmare 48 hours for tourists and residents who were cooped up in make-shift shelters during Wilma where conditions gradually deteriorated.

Pedrero said the shelters were only equipped for a maximum stay of 10 or 12 hours.

“The hurricane moved very, very slowly. It was like four hurricanes coming one after the other it took so long,” he said.

But Pedrero insisted the region was fast getting back on its feet. He said all 23,000 rooms in the Riviera Maya, which escaped the full force of Wilma, will be open by the end of the year along 18,000 of Cancun’s 27,000 rooms. The remainder will open during the first two weeks of 2006.

In Cozumel however only 1,600 of the island’s 4,000 rooms will be repaired by the end of the year. Pedrero said many hotels were “turning the crisis into an opportunity” by revamping the entire hotel.

Wilma was the second of two hurricanes to hit the peninsula this year. Hurricane Emily, which hit in July, was the first for more than 10 years.

Report by Steve Jones