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Mexico is Americans’ top international destination for Thanksgiving; ‘leave tons of money and obey the law’

November 22, 2018 | | Print Article

As thousands of Central American migrants march toward the U.S. southern border with the intention of seeking asylum or illegally crossing into America, U.S. citizens are traveling southward, albeit for different reasons.

“Despite a tough year for Mexico, Americans are still visiting the destination in droves,” Daniel Durazo, the director of communications and marketing at the travel insurance company Allianz Global Assistance USA, explained in a press release earlier this month about Americans’ Thanksgiving habits.

Of the myriad international locations that Americans plan to frequent during this year’s Thanksgiving break, Cancun tops the list. Four of its peers also made the cut, thus rendering Mexico the number one international destination for Americans seeking a vacation this Thanksgiving.

“Mexico as a country claims four spots total: San Jose Del Cabo at number five, Puerto Vallarta at nine and Mexico City at ten,” the press release notes. “The other Top 10 destinations in order of popularity are: London, Paris, San Juan, Montego Bay, Nassau and Punta Cana.”

One social media user was quick to note that the difference between Americans traveling to Mexico for vacation and their Central American counterparts traveling to the U.S. for asylum is that the former “will come back leave tons of money and obey the law.”

According to Allianz Global Assistance USA’s analysis, overall Thanksgiving travel is up by eight percent this year, suggesting the American people have more money to spend.

“More Americans are traveling for Thanksgiving than ever,” according to Allianz Global Assistance’s Top 10 Thanksgiving Destination Index, which saw an eight percent increase in travelers from 2017.”

This aligns with reports that consumer spending’s been trending upward since President Donald Trump’s election two office two years ago. It’s a trend that’s benefited everybody, including even Target, which continues to recover from the backlash that ensued over its transgender bathrooms.

“There’s no doubt that, like others, we’re currently benefiting from a very strong consumer environment — perhaps the strongest I’ve seen in my career,” Target CEO Brian Cornell said three months ago.

This trend stems from the pro-business policies that President Trump’s pursued, from across-the-board tax cuts to a rapid reduction in burdensome regulations that had stymied the economy.

It’s a trend that has garnered positive results for all sectors of the economy, not just the travel industry.

“Sales at food-service and drinking establishments rose 1.3 percent in July to $61.6 billion. … That brought the three-month annualized gain to 25.3 percent, the fastest pace in figures going back to 1992,” Bloomberg reported over the summer.

Wages and jobs are also up, while unemployment is at a record low.

What remains unclear is whether the American people using their increased wages to travel to Mexico counts as such a great idea. Some Twitter users pointed out that some U.S. travelers have been killed there.

Look:

This week a report emerged that a North Carolina teacher who’d disappeared in Mexico last month has been found dead. And just last Friday a 27-year-old American who’d traveled to a Mexican resort town to celebrate his friend’s birthday was found stabbed to death.

According to Taylor Kristopher Meyer’s parents, Mexican authorities are now trying to “cover up” the murder by claiming it was “tourist on tourist” crime when in reality their son was killed by a local.

“They don’t want people to know that there are murders happening like this because then people are not going to go there,” they said to the media. “It needs to be known that it’s not a safe place to go. It’s not okay to go and the Mexican officials need to fess up to it.”

Listen to some of their statement below:

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Vivek Saxena
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