After the US government warned students not to travel to Mexico during spring break because of drug violence, Palm Springs eyed all those tourism dollars and announced its own Spring Break campaign. The campaign got a write-up in the Desert Sun, but did anyone think all those students would really head to the desert? According to the Guardian, they're coming! Via the paper: "The largest US west coast travel firm specialising in student spring break travel says it has cancelled its planned trips to Baja California because of the crime crisis in Mexico. Thousands of students from 50 colleges won't head south, but will go east in coming weeks. Their new destination: Palm Springs." The travel firm referenced in the Guardian story is Costa Mesa based Summer Winter Action Tours, known as SWAT. SWAT's web site references the Mexico travel alerts, and notes that the company will take "advantage of Palm Springs' rich history of Spring Break revelry...Palm Springs is a hybrid of Cabo San Lucas and Vegas. It is clean, beautiful, and a true resort experience! Palm Springs has had a rebirth of young, cool and hip, with pool parties and more waiting for you!" As far as the breakdown of these "thousands of students" that'll descend on Palm Springs, it looks like there are six different trips planned from March 9th-April 17th. Two hotels, the Riviera Resort & Spa and the Holiday Inn, have been booked. But it looks like SWAT is also keeping its planned Cabo, Mexico trip so all of you Palm Springs residents may want to get on that trip to get out of town.
· Spring Break '09: Palm Springs Will Take Over for Mexico [Curbed LA]
· California travel firm cancels students' trips to Mexico [Guardian]
· Spring Break 2009 Palm Springs [SWAT]
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