Save Eco Destinations

RBD, a Latin Grammy nominated Mexican pop group that gained popularity from Televisa’s teenage-oriented telenovela Rebelde (“Rebel” or “Rebellious” in Spanish, is produced by Televisa and created by Cris Morena), will start up a campaign in protests against the vengeful and warlike attitude that Patricio Patrón Laviada, the Attorney General of Environmental Protection (PROFEPA), has against hotelkeepers in Tulum. This all started after Pedro Damian, RBD’s owner and manager joined the Guardians of Tulum Association. Pedro Damián and Emilio Azcárraga Jean, a famous TV producer and Televisa tycoon are the co-owners of property in Tulum. He in another one of the industrialist voices who is against PROFEPA’s warlike operations.

This is great news! It’s GREAT to hear that such a popular Mexican rock group is supporting the local hotel owners in Tulum by speaking out against PROFEPA.

I know this is old news (dating back to June 4th of this year), but the thread just got bumped on TripAdvisor.com, and I read through the whole situation again. The story is simple: Casa Magna, a home formerly owned by drug lord Pablo Escobar, was abandonded for nine years until the owners of Amansala managed to lease the property. After a total remodeling of the two large beach villas, it opened as a boutique hotel, available for rent as the entire property or by individual rooms. In June, the property was “raided,” foreclosed, and occupied…by someone else, claiming to have the papers to rightfully take over the land.

Okay, so Amansala has received a slew of negative reviews on TripAdvisor, but owners Melissa and Erica lawfully rented both their Amansala and Casa Magna properties. Now this thread on TA is full of comments supporting the raid and bashing the Amansala owners: “Casa Magna Management deserved this and much more, I hope the new owners never let Melissa Perlman near the property again!”

Come on, people. No matter how bad their service might be (and how responsible Melissa may be for that bad service, according to the TA reviews), no business owner deserves to lose their hotel like this, or as part of the national park scandal, or to the ejido, or whatever.

Sorry I dredged up old news, but I just had to vent.

Anyone want to buy some beach property in Tulum?