Mexico’s tourism industry is an essential component of the economy, often helping to sustain economic growth during times when growth is slow in other economic sectors. The government has long had a cabinet-level agency devoted exclusively to expanding and improving tourist facilities. In terms of foreign exchange earnings, tourism often ranks third in importance behind petroleum and manufacturing. Tourists spent $4.3 billion in Mexico in 1998.

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Mexico’s most important tourist destinations ... are numerous beach resorts. Ports of Call

Mexico’s most important tourist destinations, other than the capital city itself, are numerous beach resorts. These include: Cancún, an island and resort town just off the Yucatán Peninsula in the state of Quintana Roo; Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and Mazatlán, all resort cities on Mexico’s Pacific coast; and Los Cabos, a sport fishing and resort center at the end of the peninsula of Baja California in the state of Baja California Sur. Mexico’s border cities are also important tourist attractions and are visited by residents in nearby U.S. states. The most popular of these destinations is Tijuana, just across from San Diego, California. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens regularly visit this community and other border cities on weekends. In 1999 Mexico tallied 19.2 million visits by tourists, with most of the visitors coming from the United States and Canada, other countries in Latin America, or Europe.

Recent guerrilla movements, most notably the emergence in 1994 of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, or Zapatistas, in the state of Chiapas, severely damaged the tourist trade in southern Mexico. The appearance of another guerrilla group known as the Popular Revolutionary Army, which attacked government facilities near the tourist site of Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca in the summer of 1996, did not appear to affect the tourist trade in that region or elsewhere in Mexico.

As in literature and art, Mexico’s motion pictures and theater have long dealt with social themes. A leading figure in the film industry was Emilio “El Indio” Fernández, whose first movie, The Isle of Passion, appeared in 1941. Fernández’s work won several international awards.

Since the 1940s refugees from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) have contributed significantly to the expansion and quality of motion pictures in Mexico. Among the exiles working in the country, Luis Buñuel was one of the best known. His film Los Olvidados (The Forgotten, 1950), a film about juvenile delinquents in Mexican slums, is considered a classic. Although most Mexican films have not received widespread distribution outside of Mexico, some more recent work has achieved considerable international attention. Like Water for Chocolate (1992)—a film directed and produced by Alfonso Arau and adapted from the novel of the same name written by Laura Esquivel—was a hit in the United States and became the most successful film in Mexican history.

Theater also has a long tradition extending back to the colonial period, including the work of Juana Inés de la Cruz. Many of Mexico’s important directors and playwrights have been supported by various groups at the National University in Mexico City.