Tijuana nightlife upswing -article- (Los Angeles, San Diego: 2013, crime, restaurants)

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Just saw this in the LA Times and though I would share.

Has anyone been down in the past year to restaurants like Mision 19 http://mision19.com/ or any of the other restaurants that are garnering attention outside the region?

The article mentions how many tijuaneses (locals) are spending more time there and tourists, not so much. Have you noticed this trend?

Tijuana's creative youth breathing new life into La Sexta, beyond - latimes.com

[Jenkay]

Originally Posted by shmoov_groovzsd

Just saw this in the LA Times and though I would share.

Has anyone been down in the past year to restaurants like Mision 19 Misión 19 | Cocina de autor. or any of the other restaurants that are garnering attention outside the region?

The article mentions how many tijuaneses (locals) are spending more time there and tourists, not so much. Have you noticed this trend?

Tijuana's creative youth breathing new life into La Sexta, beyond - latimes.com

My old roommate is a TJ native, and a musician. He's been telling me the same thing about the locals coming back into the downtown areas for the past few years. I get down there a couple times a year and I've certainly noticed the difference. I'm really glad to see a "new" TJ emerging after what basically amounted to the death of tourism down there.

[Exitus Acta Probat]

Is Mission 19 the place with the donkey thing?

[sschibuola]

Haven't experienced it personally, but my company is doing some work on re-vamping the San Ysidro Trolley station, maybe attracting some private development to help pay for it . . . and there's some good interest from young TJ restauranteurs and other entrepreneurs to expand their businesses to this side of the border. This is all encouraging for the regional economy, I think.

[sfosyd]

I was at Mision 19 in March, parked at the border, walked across and took a cab. No problems whatsoever. Fantastic food and beautiful space. Highly recommended.

[Think4Yourself]

I did the same thing sfosyd did and can say the restaurant is amazingly good. Food of that quality would cost easily twice the price in L.A. or S.F. where there would be a line out the door seven days a week.

[Pedro2000]

It's good for locales to build up the city, improve it, clean it, etc. The problem with tourism is it's a country issue. When you have heads showing up on highways, shootings happening often, tourists being kidnapped and raped, and bad press and media stories often because of a drug war, tourists are going to stay away. And even if it just happens once in a blue moon, that one time suddenly brings back all the bad press from the past few years.

It's like anything. There are certain parts of Los Angeles people avoid. Certain parts of San diego. certain parts of Miami, NY, San Fran, etc. If you're a tourist looking to spend money, you go to where you can relax and have a good time. And feel safe. The people who don't care about that aren't the norm. So they aren't bringing in the big tourist dollars. It's going to take years for the entire country to get back to what it once was in regards to tourism. And who knows if they ever will if they continue to go down the drug war path.

I took a trip to colombia not so long ago. People were in shock. They warned me. And while there are still issues down there, it's been a long time since they were the drug war zone country. And yet people still give it that stigma. Mexico has become far worse than Colombia was years ago. So that stigma is going to hurt tourism for a long time.

[oddstray]

Pedro2000, I think your description is about two to four years behind the times. There was a stretch of time when going to Tijuana appeared to be a stupidly dangerous thing to do. But things have greatly settled down since then. And in the end, most of the violence during that bad stretch involved people involved with the drug trade. Yes, there was occasional crime and violence against tourists ... but that happens in San Diego, too.

[Jenkay]

Originally Posted by Pedro2000

It's good for locales to build up the city, improve it, clean it, etc. The problem with tourism is it's a country issue. When you have heads showing up on highways, shootings happening often, tourists being kidnapped and raped, and bad press and media stories often because of a drug war, tourists are going to stay away. And even if it just happens once in a blue moon, that one time suddenly brings back all the bad press from the past few years.

It's like anything. There are certain parts of Los Angeles people avoid. Certain parts of San diego. certain parts of Miami, NY, San Fran, etc. If you're a tourist looking to spend money, you go to where you can relax and have a good time. And feel safe. The people who don't care about that aren't the norm. So they aren't bringing in the big tourist dollars. It's going to take years for the entire country to get back to what it once was in regards to tourism. And who knows if they ever will if they continue to go down the drug war path.

I took a trip to colombia not so long ago. People were in shock. They warned me. And while there are still issues down there, it's been a long time since they were the drug war zone country. And yet people still give it that stigma. Mexico has become far worse than Colombia was years ago. So that stigma is going to hurt tourism for a long time.

Tijuana is considered the safest of the border cities now. Tourists had *already* been staying away, mostly because of the media hype about violence. What violence was occuring was pretty much all between drug cartels and those associated with them, including thier families, but had little to no effect whatsoever on the tourists. Still, they stopped going. And TJ withered. It was really painful to see, actually. I'm happy to see that the city seems to be rebuilding itself from the inside out, with an emphasis on the arts and good food. There's even a burgeoning craft beer scene happening down there.

Good things are happening.

[Tchud Diego]

The business owners had it with the violence and cartels and closed up shop. The Sinaloa Cartel and Tijuana Cartel went to war for years, and finally Villarreal, a Sinaloa boss was captured. After this, things cooled down and the media frenzy over the war died out. The Navy is still not allowed down there, but the locals are back, and business is good.