Students sometimes start planning Spring Break vacation months in advance. So, why after searching for flights, hotels and excursions would groups of college students cancel their plans? How about drug turf wars?

Warnings have been issued by the U.S., Canada, France, Italy and Germany to avoid travel to Mexico. In particular, college students have been warned to avoid Mexican border cities where drug violence is blamed for some 5,400 deaths last year.

"Our trip to Playa del Carmen was planned and paid for," Julia McNeel, a senior in education said.

McNeel and a group of friends cancelled their trip after learning of the extreme violence in the area.

"We didn't know about it when we were planning. People are getting killed and they're just bystanders."

After McNeel's mother brought the issue to their full attention, the group met to deliberate the trip. They decided to ere on the side of caution and relocate their spring break expedition to Key West, Fla.

"It was really stressful, but I'm really thankful now that we're not going."

Monte Alejandro Rubido Garcia, executive secretary for Mexico's National System for Public Safety explained in an interview with CNN that the violence is not a matter of drug trafficking routes out of the country, but rather who gets to sell where at home.

"Mexcio all of a sudden stopped being a drug-transit country and became a drug-consuming country," Rubido said.

Of the deaths last year, Rubido asserts that 90-percent involved individuals in organized crime and, for the most part, was not affecting ordinary citizens.

"A lot of our parents were concerned," senior public relations student Brooke Bloom said of her spring break plans to visit Playa del Carmen.

"We've done a lot of research. Some people in my groups have already cancelled, but the majority of us have decided to go."

That's the reaction Rubido and Mexico's tourism director, Oscar Fitch, are hoping to evoke.

"In all parts of the world, you have to be careful what you do," Fitch reported to CNN. "What I am saying is there are safe zones and there are zones that are not safe."

Despite the onslaught of images and news of beheadings and street killings, Mexico's tourism is not experiencing significant declines. The declines it has faced are claimed to be attributable to the economy and not the drug war.

Another claim Mexican officials have made to ease the worries of visitors is that the vacation hot-spots like Cancun, Cozumel and Cabo San Lucas are relatively unaffected. Also, the drug war and warnings to tourists are not new. A travel alert was issued in 2007. It was the decision of the U.S. to target college students that lead to the slew of media coverage.

The violent slayings and beheadings, Rubido claims, are a media stunt to gain more coverage so the gangs can impact the Mexican government.

"They're first killed with a shot, then decapitated for maximum visual impact," Rubido said.


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