The President of the Hotel Association in Puerto Vallarta, Rodolfo Pacheco Hernandez, has called for sanctions against taxi drivers who are forming blockades to stop the operation of tour buses in the city and in the parking areas of the hotels and resorts. Hernandez has called on authorities to get involved.

“We need to always be thinking about the tourists who will come tomorrow and not fighting over the tourists who are here today. By treating the tourists properly today we guarantee more tourists tomorrow and we will be financially rewarded. If we are only focused on fighting for what is here today we will ruin tourism for tomorrow and we will all be in poverty,” says Hernandez.

Hernandez reminded taxi drivers that they are under a commitment with their taxi permit to create a good image for the city of Puerto Vallarta and that their actions are not in accordance with the law or their permit to operate a taxi in the city.

Taxi unions have publicly agreed with Hernandez and have suggested that they can revoke licenses and also apply fines to taxi drivers who break their agreements for operating in the city, however the unions enforcing such penalties is yet to be seen.

Alejandro Torres, the manager of the hotel association went a step further by stating that the taxi unions have no control over their drivers and are unaware of how to manage in the tourist area in which we live.

Over the past month there have been three separate reports of taxi drivers blocking tour buses for up to an hour while tourist vacations were hijacked. Each instance took place on hotel property where hotel management never requested the taxi be removed from their property and police were never called to the scene.

Last week, Vallarta Daily made a public call on for the Mayor of Puerto Vallarta, the Tourism Board, and the Hotel Association to speak out against these actions hurting the local tourism industry. The hotel association at the time informed us that they were unaware of any such actions, even though it had been reported by many media outlets in the area.