Mar 19, 2008
In the month of April and afterwards, remarkable vacation bargains are available in Cancún and the adjoining Mayan Riviera
Puzzled by the pricing of Vacation Travel Mart's (tel. 800/288-1435; www.vacmart.com) air-and-land packages to the Caribbean, I placed a call last week to its president, Jacques Abitan. "Are you aware," I asked, "that you are charging the same for a five-day stay in Cancún as for the Dominican Republic?"
"Of course," he answered. And he proceeded to tell me about a collapse in prices in the Cancún area because of the immense amount of recent hotel construction. In the Mayan Riviera (the stretch of Caribbean coast immediately south of Cancún), some 4,000 new rooms opened in the two-month period of November-December of 2007 alone. And there are now some 40,000 rooms in the "hotel zone" of Cancún itself. You can hear a podcast of my interview with Jacques Abitan at the opening of the first hour of March 16's Travel Show, at www.wor710.com (click on "Weekend Programming").
Because the hotel/resorts of Mexico's Caribbean coast are giving discounts to tour operators of 40%, 50% and even 60%, the package values are tremendous indeed; they result in prices identical to those charged for air-and-land packages to that longtime champion of bargain vacations, the Dominican Republic.
And it gets better. According to Jacques Abitan (a veteran of many years of tour operation to the tropics), the radical, low-cost fares to the Caribbean of upstarts JetBlue and Spirit Airlines have wrecked the normal airfare price structure and forced American, United, Northwest and Continental to cut their own fares to many Caribbean locations. Because of that -- again according to Jacques Abitan -- tour operators are sometimes enjoying lower fares to the Caribbean from New York, Chicago and Detroit than from Miami!
Contact them and you'll find air-and-land offers for a five-day stay at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico (and the Dominican Republic), including round-trip airfare from Miami and all three meals daily, for as little as $587 per person (and just a tiny bit more from northern cities). Those rates will dip further in April (an off-season month in a year when Easter occurs so early). You'll find similar stays at a new super-deluxe hotel (the Valentin) on Mexico's Caribbean coast, again including airfare and all three meals daily, for $1,000. In a travel world where Europe has become the expensive destination, the Caribbean is now the cost-conscious place to go.
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"Of course," he answered. And he proceeded to tell me about a collapse in prices in the Cancún area because of the immense amount of recent hotel construction. In the Mayan Riviera (the stretch of Caribbean coast immediately south of Cancún), some 4,000 new rooms opened in the two-month period of November-December of 2007 alone. And there are now some 40,000 rooms in the "hotel zone" of Cancún itself. You can hear a podcast of my interview with Jacques Abitan at the opening of the first hour of March 16's Travel Show, at www.wor710.com (click on "Weekend Programming").
Because the hotel/resorts of Mexico's Caribbean coast are giving discounts to tour operators of 40%, 50% and even 60%, the package values are tremendous indeed; they result in prices identical to those charged for air-and-land packages to that longtime champion of bargain vacations, the Dominican Republic.
And it gets better. According to Jacques Abitan (a veteran of many years of tour operation to the tropics), the radical, low-cost fares to the Caribbean of upstarts JetBlue and Spirit Airlines have wrecked the normal airfare price structure and forced American, United, Northwest and Continental to cut their own fares to many Caribbean locations. Because of that -- again according to Jacques Abitan -- tour operators are sometimes enjoying lower fares to the Caribbean from New York, Chicago and Detroit than from Miami!
Contact them and you'll find air-and-land offers for a five-day stay at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico (and the Dominican Republic), including round-trip airfare from Miami and all three meals daily, for as little as $587 per person (and just a tiny bit more from northern cities). Those rates will dip further in April (an off-season month in a year when Easter occurs so early). You'll find similar stays at a new super-deluxe hotel (the Valentin) on Mexico's Caribbean coast, again including airfare and all three meals daily, for $1,000. In a travel world where Europe has become the expensive destination, the Caribbean is now the cost-conscious place to go.
Write and read comments about this post.
Fifty years ago, 
Arthur Frommer is generally acknowledged to be the nation's foremost travel authority. He is the founder of the
