SAN FELIPE DEVELOPER'S MEETING HELD DECEMBER 13, 2006
REUNION DE LA ASOCIACION DE DESARROLLADORES TURISTICOS DE SAN FELIPE
San Felipe Marina Resort - December 13, 2006
By Katherine Hammontré
As stated on the news page, Ing. Armando Ramos Arevalo, Presidente of the group chaired the meeting. All developers and their guests were given translating equipment with headphones (if requested), and a gentleman at the back of the room, translated in both languages. This is a big plus for developers who do not know the language. At any rate, the meeting opened with Mel from Grey Eagle saying that he'd been on many web sites and the only one advertising Grey Eagle was Mi Casa del Mar; that he wanted to see flyers in every mail box, his logo on every site and he was sure the problem was "people here don't know that Grey Eagle is here". That they had only had 135 passengers since they launched their service and the Developer's Group could not be expected to subsidize them too much longer. He said they were prohibited by law from advertising in the states.
Juan, the sales manager from Century 21 said he tried to make reservations and asked his staff to find out how to make them, and after two days, he said "it was very hard for him to make a reservation, so he drove". He asked if they could make reservations from their office, and Dave La Barre said that all reservations had to be made through Grey Eagle.
Lic. Arnulfo Zarate, General Manager of the Marina and President of Fedicomiso (the federal arm of Tourism) explained that after January, this entity would allocate funds to promote tourism.
This writer spoke next and although I am not a member of the developer's group, I was invited to attend the meeting to report on it for The Net. I reiterated what Mel had said regarding only seeing advertising for Grey Eagle on one site, that of Mi Casa Del Mar, and I reminded him that we (www.sanfelipe.com.mx) had Grey Eagle's announcement on our front page since the inception and there were other sites which were promoting Grey Eagle, including Remax, Playas Paraiso, etc. I also told the group that we have a direct link to Grey Eagle and many articles on our news page and weather page. As I was invited on the first flight, we also put all the aerial and photos of the dignitaries on Kat's Korner and with over 77 million hits in the last 12 months, that I believed "the word is out". I then went on to say that I believed that it wasn't a matter of people not knowing that Grey Eagle exists; that it was my opinion from the feed back we had received that the problem was two fold. "A sign of the times - people have until January 23 to get a passport to fly into Mexico and, contrary to popular belief, not everyone who lives in El Dorado, etc, can afford the air fair. I said, I believe the feed back that we have received is that it's too expensive and a couple with two children are not going to pay that kind of money to come to San Felipe, but we were promoting the flights as best we could.
Eric Garcia of Playa Paraiso said they will pay anything over $250 if the prospects come down to see their property, whether they buy or not.
Sr. Ramos spoke again and explained that hopefully, after improvements are made at the airport, we would be able to have a larger plane and the prices would be more reasonable. He turned the microphone over to Rolando Gomez Silva, Delegado of Tourism San Felipe, (this entity is also in charge of the airport) and he said that running out of fuel at the airport was a federal problem and it would not happen again as the Federal government had allocated money for the airport improvements and the roads and we are already seeing changes now as the road from Ensenada is being worked on and the road to Puertacitos was almost done. So, evidently, this writer assumes, San Felipe is going to benefit from federal funds to fix our roads and international airport.
Victor Rodriguez Silva, President of Cotuco Mexicali, showed a Power Point demonstration about Sonora and how we should market that area.
As I had to leave before Sr. Navarro spoke, this is information given to me by one attendee and verified by a developer:
Sr. Rafael Navarro, owner of Pete's Camp and President of the Committee to Muncipalize San Felipe spoke and he said that the bottom line is San Felipe needs financing and introduced a woman who is working with Desert Mother, who can write loans for most all kinds of construction, and she would not work exclusively for one developer. Sr. Navarro said that only seven developers had paid their dues for the calendar year 2006, and in 2007, if these dues were not paid, they would ask the developer to leave the group. He emphasized that San Felipe is very close to becoming a Municipality but the developers in San Felipe and the south beaches, need to buy their supplies in San Felipe, not Mexicali because it then appears that we don't have the tax base needed to complete the process. In addition, it also helps the economy of San Felipe, which is sorely needed at this time. There was talk about the need for San Felipe to work together with Ensenada to help promote Northern Baja, in addition to San Felipe and our south beaches, which are in Ensenada County..
Every one agreed that meetings should be held each month.