Sectur denounces those who affected the image of the country with visitmexico.com
The Secretary of Tourism Miguel Torruco Marqués reported that the agency under his charge has filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office against who or who are responsible
During a virtual press conference held this afternoon, the head of Sectur explained that VisitMexico was the official promotion portal of the Council for Tourism Promotion of Mexico (CPTM), with an operating cost of six million pesos per year, which maintained alliances with private companies such as BestDay, operating with their reservation engine.
He pointed out that, due to the dissolution and liquidation of the CPTM, the portal became dependent on the Ministry of Tourism to continue offering digital tourism promotion services. For this reason, for its continuity and operation, an agreement was signed with the company Braintivity S.A. de C.V., chaired by businessman Marcos Achar, which does not represent an outlay on the part of the public treasury.
He explained that the strategy proposed the administration, operation and use of the VisitMexico portal, as well as its micro sites known as domains, which estimated the execution of works to build an entire digital strategy to give a greater scope, level and dimension to the information, promotion and digitization actions of the tourist offer in Mexico.
The scope and dimension that is achieved through agreements and sponsorships with various companies and organizations for the reformulation of the new portal, such as Fuerza Migrante, New York Yankees, Discovery Network, Concanaco, MasterCard, Ford Motor Company, Google and Aeroméxico, among others, make that the project of the new portal becomes a strongly attractive program.
Secretary Torruco Marqués specified that, in this context, on July 24, 2020, a legend appeared on the visitmexico.com site that said: "Suspension for non-payment," which caused the page to be disabled "and is our knowledge that it was caused by a third party called Tecnocen.com, SA de C.V., who allegedly had a business relationship with the Braintivity company ”.
For this reason, the Ministry of Tourism, in use of its faculties, requested from Braintivity, by means of an official letter dated July 24, an urgent and detailed report of the situation of the portal. Likewise, he sent a letter to Network Solutions and Web.com Group, Inc., registrars of those domains, requesting that they deliver them.
“Tecnocen sent, through our portal, a public letter addressed to the Presidency of the Republic, offering to return the domains, for which the Ministry of Tourism was instructed to receive them, an act that took place on July 30, with the participation of personnel from the Ministry of Tourism and the Coordination of Digital Strategy of the Presidency of the Republic. These domains were received subject to review, ”he said.
He added that, from the review carried out so far, it has been found that, regarding the delivery of the domains, the account linked to visitmexico.com was received, but the domain is blocked in its access due to its transfer , given that Tecnocen.com, SA de CV, paid on its behalf the renewal of the domains to Network Solutions for 2020, consequently having absolute control. For this reason, it was requested, by means of an official letter dated August 7, the redirection of the visitmexico.com website to visitmexico.mx, by failing to comply with what was agreed in the delivery certificate, because although they delivered and blocked the domains, they kept the control. This allowed them to post, after the “Non-payment” legend, information not authorized by Braintivity.
Derived from the above, it has been detected that the portal presents inconsistencies in the information and in the translation in English. This caused the names of the states to be translated literally. For this reason, the Ministry of Tourism dissociates itself from the absurd and incongruous translations that appeared in English on the VisitMexico portal, and expresses its most energetic rejection against those who fraudulently and tendentiously uploaded information to ridicule and damage the tourist image of Mexico.
Finally, the head of Sectur stated "that the Ministry of Tourism has filed a complaint with the Attorney General of the Republic against who or those who are responsible, for alleged illegal acts and damage related to the tourist image of Mexico."