ABSTRACT
The case study focuses on the damaging consequences of Mexico’s ongoing violent drug cartel wars on the economic and perceptual health of Rosarito Beach, a once trendy and popular seaside resort city an hour south of the US–Mexican border in northern Baja. Rosarito’s disastrous loss of tourism dollars and popularity was largely the result of mediated reality. The media-driven perception conflated the violence a thousand miles away from Rosarito in Ciudad Juarez and other distant Mexican locales with the reality of an essentially safe Rosarito Beach. To counter the damaging and misleading perception of Rosarito, a crisis communication and rebranding campaign was launched under the supervision of a coalition of students led by an Emerson College professor, a public relations consultant on the ground in Rosarito, and an active and courageous mayor of Rosarito. The mixed outcome of the campaign is analyzed.
