Baja California officials said yesterday they are expecting close to 200,000 Mexican and foreign tourists to visit their state during the upcoming spring break in Mexico and Holy Week period.

Advertisement“For us, it’s going to be a vacation period like we haven’t seen for the past two years,” Oscar Escobedo Carignan, Baja California’s tourism secretary, said at a news conference in Tijuana Mexico. “We believe we have an opportunity in our hands.”
Reports of violence and police extortion in Baja California took a heavy toll on tourism and were a factor in reducing the number of U.S. visitors to the state by close to 2 million last year. Lengthy waits at the border also have discouraged visits, officials say.

Escobedo stressed the measures that have been taken to make the state safer for visitors, including the restructuring of tourist police units, increasing federal patrols on the toll road between Tijuana and Ensenada, and staffing the state’s emergency response center with English-speakers. [/mexico/tijuana/20080307-9999-1m7break.html]