President Calderón and the National Trust for Tourism Development, recently announced a new $5 billion peso project to create the next big tourist destination in Mexico in southern Sinaloa. The proposed mega-project which is provisionally called the Pacific Coast Integrally Planned Center, is on the Pacific coast, 80 miles south of Mazatlan, and includes 7.5 miles of beaches. To give you an idea of the scale of this project, it is planned to be twice the size of Cancun. Projections are that the project will result in the creation of 78,000 direct and indirect jobs and that the area will eventually attract 3 million tourists by 2025. There are also plans for four golf courses, two marinas, 44,200 hotel rooms, a five mile beachfront walk, a light rail, and possibly a new airport. Infrastructure work is scheduled to begin in 2009, with phase 1 of the project to be completed by 2012, and the final stage of the phased development to be completed by 2025. This is exciting news as this is the National Trust for Tourism Development's (also known as FONATUR) first master plan development in 20 years. FONATUR has also planned the development of Cancun and Los Cabos. This could be a great opportunity for investment, but other FONATUR projects have failed to grow into major tourist attractions such as Loreto and the Bays of Huatulco. Also, this announcement was made on September 29th, before Mexico stocks took a major hit and the peso had the biggest fall in a decade. The global economic turmoil may delay the project and lower foreign direct investment. For the average investor or retiree, it will be years before there will be new units to invest in or move into. Even so, this new project is an encouraging sign that Mexico real estate will continue to grow in the future with the potential addition of yet another major tourist destination. Source: Mexican Pacific Coast Tourism Project to Outshine Cancún Mexidata.info