First Florida, then Cuba now Mexico. What are the March Break alternatives for Canadians?

“Don’t go to Mexico,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford urged travellers Monday after the killing of a powerful drug cartel boss by Mexico’s army Sunday led to burning cars and shootouts with security forces in cities across Mexico  — and adding to the latest disruptions for Canadians seeking March Break beach getaways.

“It’s amazing how all of these things have sort of collided — the U.S. (tariff wars), the Cuban situation and then this,” said Richard Vanderlubbe, president of TripCentral.ca.

Canadians are being urged to “exercise a high degree of caution” in Mexico, with shelter-in-place orders in effect Monday in several states, including Jalisco, home of the vacation hotspot, Puerto Vallarta. Canadian airlines cancelled flights, in and out of Puerto Vallarta, Sunday. “We are monitoring the situation and are working to bring our customers back as soon as it is safe to do so,” Air Canada told CBC News on Monday, though flights were expected to resume as early as Monday or Tuesday, according to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo .

The turmoil comes weeks after Canadian airlines announced on Feb. 10 that they were suspending all flights to Cuba, through to the end of April, due to an aviation fuel crunch driven by U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to cut off fuel shipments from Cuba’s ally, Venezuela, and his vow to slap tariffs on any country that supplies Cuba with oil.

The cancelled Cuba flights affected 2,600 bookings for TripCentral alone.

With March break looming, where can people go and where should they avoid?

Spring break books months ahead — “way ahead of time” — and space is very limited and expensive for what’s left, Vanderlubbe said.

The situation in Cuba forced tens of thousands of tourists to look for affordable alternatives. Some looked to places like Dominican Republic. “But all those prices shot up right away,” Vanderlubbe said. “As soon as Cuba was cancelled, and everybody started looking at once, people don’t realize that when you buy travel, you’re participating in a live auction.”

Hotels are dynamically priced, he said. When demand rises, discounts drop, and prices go up.

While some opted “for something totally different,” like a cruise, “many are sitting it out because they aren’t finding anything close to what they booked for in Cuba,” Vanderlubbe said. “With respect to Cuba, it’s hard to find the white powdery beach and open bar (at all-inclusive resorts) at such a good price. You have to compromise something: the price, the powdery beach or even a beach entirely by taking a cruise.”

“A lot of people are just taking a refund and that’s it, hoping maybe for another time,” he said.

Mexico is a giant sun destination for Canadians, he said. Ford, at an unrelated news conference Monday, warned Mexico “is not stable right now.”

“Highly recommend: don’t go to Mexico,” the premier said.

While “we certainly didn’t book a lot of Puerto Vallarta yesterday (Sunday)” TripCentral was still seeing bookings for Cancun and the Riviera Maya on Monday, Vanderlubbe said.

Cancun, one of the largest Caribbean getaways for Canadians and one of Mexico’s most eastern points, is more than a 30-hour drive from Puerto Vallarta, where tensions erupted, said Amra Durakovic, a spokesperson for the Flight Centre Travel Group.

“These are very separate regions,” she said. A national guard presence has been established in tourism zones in Cancun for about a year, she added. “Many travellers are accustomed to that security environment within the hotel tourists corridor in Cancun” and people are travelling as planned to that region of the country, she said.

Flight Centre had fewer than 100 bookings Monday in Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Guadalajara. “There has been nothing negative that we’ve heard from any of our customers” on the ground, she said Monday.

For anyone looking to “reboot or pivot” their vacation, while availability in Dominican Republic is tight, other options for people looking for the sun include Peru and Costa Rica, particularly for all-inclusive travellers and tours, she said.

“We’re also seeing a lot of interest in Belize and Colombia, which also offer all-inclusives. And, for those who are open to longer haul, we’re seeing growth in south-east Asia, specifically Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam,” Durakovic said.

“If you look at comparable prices, you can get a seven-night, five-star in Mexico comparable to a 10-night, five-star in Bali, Indonesia.”

Cruises are also gaining popularity. “It offers that sense of safety — you are out at sea, if anything does happen at a destination you’re meant to port in they will pivot and got to another destination,” Durakovic said.

Other options include the ABC islands — Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. “You will pay a higher price point, but if you are willing to pay more money there are so many different, wonderful places to explore,” she said, including Portugal, which is getting warmer. “Portugal is a great place to start travelling to in the spring, before the summer peak travel rush.”

In addition to the shelter-in-place order in Puerto Vallarta, Canada issued travel advisories in February urging travellers to Jamaica, Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago and the Turks and Caicos Islands to “exercise a high degree of caution,” due to high rates of crime — including violent crime in Jamaica, particularly outside tourist areas. These yellow warnings are issued when there are “certain safety and security concerns or the situation can change quickly,” according to the travel advisory website.

Indonesia and Costa Rica also had similar warnings, with regional advisories.

Meanwhile, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Maarten, Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Curacao were among the warmer destinations that carried a green checkmark when the travel advisory website was last checked Monday – “take normal security precautions,” meaning “take similar precautions to those you would take in Canada.”

An “avoid all travel” alert was issued Feb. 4 for Venezuela “due to the heightened security situation, unstable political and economic situations, significant level of violent crime, the risk of arbitrary detention” and decline in basic living conditions.

National Post

• Canadian citizens in Puerto Vallarta told to shelter in place as violence erupts after cartel leader's death
• Cuba begins shutting resorts as fuel crunch hits tourism

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