Diving off a cliff

FOR the first time in 55 years, this week a hurricane and a tropical storm arrived almost simultaneously on Mexico’s Pacific and Gulf coasts, killing at least 80 people (with a further 58 missing) and leaving tens of thousands homeless. If that was a double dose of bad news on a three-day holiday weekend, Acapulco, the south-western resort where Hollywood divas once flirted with cliff-divers, was thrice-cursed. It bore the brunt of the storm just as it is struggling to overcome a collapse in tourism and the stigma of becoming Mexico’s most violent city. “Acapulco is sinking,” splashed Reforma, a newspaper.

Though the resort’s heyday is long past, it did enjoy a recent revival in upmarket tourism. That proved brief. The number of foreign visitors flying in plunged from over 350,000 in 2006 to fewer than 61,000 in 2012. It received just nine cruise ships last year, down from 81 in 2011. Even those most reckless of tourists, American spring-breakers, have balked. Their numbers have plummeted by 92% in three years.