In point of actual fact the entire legend of Mexican expensiveness is completely spurious and probably had its origins in the inflated reports of returned travelers about their own fancy way of life away from home where nobody could check on them. The cost of truly de luxe hotel and restaurant accommodations in the principal tourist centers of Mexico is about a half to two-thirds what it is in the United States, if one excepts such exorbitantly priced items as imported wine and tobacco, and ordinary food and comfortable lodging such as the average vacationist might be accustomed to at home, is about one-third the price of its equivalent in the United States.
Blumey's enormous success as a hotelier and restaurateur has arrived from his provision for Americans in Mexico of a great many things for which they are quite free to admit they hone and hanker: corned beef hash, ice water, oneday laundry service, twin beds, French vanilla ice cream, American cigarettes, and a sort of comic opera version of English-speaking telephone service at a great deal less than the equivalent properties would cost in Baltimore or Boston and at only a fraction of what they nick the customers in New York or Beverly Hills.
Eating at Longchamps is entertainment as well as food, as Blumey's messages to his patrons, printed on the backs of the menus, are a sort of Billy Rose column in themselves, and the Americanisms of the eager beagles behind the counter are hilarious. Blumey's “Hamburgueasas” flown in from Kansas City, his hot dogs, also flown in from Sharaf's in Boston, his electric-Silex-brewed coffee, and similar items are the wonder of the town and while the American tourists are hoisting hodsful of stingers in Tony's Bar next door, the youth and chivalry of Mexico are going out of their happy Latin minds in puddles of hot fudge sundae and banana splits. It is all very mad indeed.
Champagne, it must be reported, is prohibitively priced in Mexico by reason of the Federal tax on imported wine, and there isn't a decent cigar to be discovered south of the Rio Grande. The “Puros” available at cigar counters can be used as exterminator, and the most mediocre Havana stogie comes to about eighty cents American. Nor are Mexican barkeeps all that can be desired conversationally. Beyond an understanding of the word Martini, few speak a word of English, and a few old-time, Irish-New York barmen ought to command fancy salaries.
To return to Blumey, who is a sort of pint-sized synthesis of Ernie Byfield and Dave Chasen, the Reforma's head man is of the belief that tourist trade in Mexico is in its barest infancy despite the circumstance that travelers spent something in excess of ＄100,000,000 American there last year. He complains that previous administrations have never approached adequate appropriations for the advertising and promotion of tourist attractions, but expects the Alemán administration to remedy this almost immediately and in something resembling the grand manner. While Blumey is the last man in the world to belittle the little-frequented aspects of the Mexican countryside, the cathedrals, antiquities, and historic shrines, his own particular field of endeavor is confined to big-time luxe with pour le sport overtones of air travel, deep-sea fishing, and name bands. People, he believes, are generally gregarious, and travelers away from home cleave to each other's company with almost animal ferocity. They admire, he has discovered, to talk about getting off the beaten track and visiting little fishing villages where no Yankees have ever penetrated before, but in fact they will flock to the starlit roof of the Reforma-Casablanca at Acapulco in thousands to dance to Broadway music provided by a strictly Fifty-second Street swing band. Tourists, Blumey thinks quite incidentally, are rude, patronizing, and overbearing and, if he were a Mexican, he would cut their throats from ear to ear jointly and severally. As it is, they provide a living for him and he manages to put up with them.
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