My port or yours? A Mexican engineer's ship has come in—and it's loaded with cash-laden tourists

Latin Trade, August, 2004 by Anne Kalosh

New Yorker Amanda Megibow clutches jewelry purchases as her husband, Andrew, squeezes into a pair of leather cowboy boots. The Megibows and their three young children are on a US$6,000 spending spree in Mexico's newest cruise port, cashing in on their prize for being the 1 millionth passengers to step ashore.

They're at Puerto Costa Maya, a booming cruise destination in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula that did not exist four years ago. Since this privately financed port began taking its first ships in February 2001, the former patch of scrubland near the tiny fishing village of Majahual has grown into one of the Caribbean's most important and fastest-growing cruise ports.

"A private investor creating a destination completely out of now here is unheard of," says Jamie Haller, director of deployment and itinerary planning for Miami cruise lines Royal Caribbean International and Celebrity Cruises. Puerto Costa Maya will see 214 ship calls and 500,000 passengers in 2004, numbers comparable to longer-established and better-known ports. Barbados, for instance, hosted 560,000 cruise passengers in 2003.

Rapid industry growth in the 1990s prompted cruise companies to dramatically expand their fleets, so when the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks caused air travel to plummet, cruise lines scrambled to shift many of those vessels to U.S. embarkation ports like Tampa, Galveston and New Orleans, where potential customers could arrive easily by car. Seven-day cruise destinations were in demand. Cozumel, Grand Cayman and other ports were packed. Costa Maya fit the bill.

"Their strategy is right on," Haller says. "They looked at the growth of the industry and realized there simply weren't enough ports in the Western Caribbean. This is the first person coming out of nowhere and saying 'I see an opportunity.'"

Isaac Hamui, president and CEO of Promociones Turisticas Mahahual in Cancun, invested $20 million into building Puerto Costa Maya's three piers and a landside complex with a 6,500-square-meter shopping center, restaurants, a swimming pool and an amphitheater. Hamui, a civil engineer behind hospitals and other public works projects for the Mexican government, earlier had constructed a Cozumel pier that he sold to cruise giant Carnival Corporation.

Now he leads a group of 20 shareholders, mainly executives from Mexico City, who are pumping another $30 million into vacation villas on land adjacent to Costa Maya. They've created 200 jobs in the port alone; the population of Majahual has grown to 800 from just 80 three years ago.

The pace of growth has taken even Hamui by surprise. "We never expected to make 1 million passengers so fast," he says. Hamui projected 100,000 passengers in the first year, rising by 100,000 annually. He has built scores of big government-funded projects. The difference with Puerto Costa Maya? "This is mine," he says.

For now, the port can accommodate three ships at once, including the largest passenger ships being designed. Hamui plans to invest $10 million to $15 million to build two additional berths by 2005. That would put emerging Costa Maya close to well-developed Cozumel's seven piers. Cozumel is the world's busiest cruise port, welcoming 2.7 million passengers in 2003.

Mexico has a handful of privately funded port facilities used by cruise ships, such as Carnival's Puerta Maya and Punta Langosta, also in Cozumel. Punta Langosta's major shareholder is Empresas ICA Sociedad Controladora. A third private port, Calica, is owned by Vulcan Materials Company.

But Puerto Costa Maya is different. It was built from virgin land and designed exclusively as a cruise destination. Passengers step from their ships onto the pier and walk or take a free shuttle to the shopping center filled with leather items, jewelry, liquor and designer goods.

A weakness of the port, cruise shore-excursion staff say, is that it needs more tours. Two operators offer day trips from Puerto Costa Maya, including dune buggy tours along the coast; Mayan sites Kohunlich and Dzibanche; bike and kayak adventures; and snorkeling.

Cesax Lizarraga, director of sales and marketing for Puerto Costa Maya, expects entrepreneurs to develop excursions as the destination grows. He has opened a Miami office and has hired a Florida public relations agency. "We are constantly in evolution," Lizarraga says. "If we can improve, we do it."

ANNE KALOSH * MAJAHUAL, MEXICO