Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced a program to increase and remodel a significant part of the country's tourism infrastructure. In the words of Peña Nieto, the idea is to ensure that Mexico is a "world power in tourism." The strategy includes the repositioning of Mexico in the global market and the modernization of infrastructure and tourism services. A few days after the announcement on tourism-related infrastructure, President Peña Nieto presented the 2013-2018 Investment Program in Infrastructure for Transportation and Communications designed to "convert Mexico into a major global logistics hub with high added value," according to Peña Nieto. Through an investment of approximately 300 billion dollars (4,000,000,000 pesos), the President and his administration have proposed: i) a network of highways that is safer, more complete and in good condition throughout the Republic; ii) an increase in passenger transportation by train and promoting increased use of freight trains; iii) strengthening the capacity of Mexico's port system; iv) achieving improved service, costs and frequency of air transportation to alleviate the saturation of the Mexico City airport and to promote regional connecting flights; and v) achieving universal access of the country to the telecommunications sector. This should be encouraging news for global and Mexican investors. As several commentators have observed, Mexico must take advantage of its geographic location, domestic market, natural beauty, history and culture to attract a greater influx of investment in tourism and in infrastructure to provide greater conditions for economic growth.
