Mexico Expecting 2012 Tourists

Drug violence has destroyed Mexico’s tourist industry, but there is new hope on the horizon, thanks to the Mayans of more than a thousand years ago.

Several of Mexico’s top tourism officials have been making the rounds in their northern neighbor, betting that an invitation to see Maya ruins will attract hordes of older, wealthier U.S. visitors keen on Mexican culture.
Whereas the Hollywood blockbuster “2012″ depicts the end of the Maya calendar as the spark of a global calamity, the Mexican campaign will include a countdown to the calendar’s conclusion and urge tourists to visit archaeological sites in the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo and Tabasco.
“Our interpretation of the Mayan calendar is reverse to what many people speculate,” Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, the chief operating officer for the Mexico Tourism Board, said on a swing through Los Angeles with other top Mexican officials this summer. “Our focus will be on growth and prosperity instead of the end of the world.”